Dog And Big Pony Show

In one of my High School English classes we had a unit on media literacy.  It was a pretty forward-thinking move for the time, but now I realize it was just a mangled summary of Marshal McLuhan's theories.  And of course the media has grown more complex, ubiquitous, and devious since then.  Teaching kids to consider the message of advertising seems quaint now.

Certainly, I've found that I have to reach far beyond that unit to make sense of today's advertising. And even then a lot of it makes no sense.  We were taught that commercials portray an unrealistic ideal of the customer.  That is, you sell beer by showing a good-looking successful person drinking the beer.  But now, most beer ads show losers you wouldn't want to associate with.  The only one with an idealized drinker is the Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man In The World" campaign, and they use the ploy in an ironically obvious way.

And there's this Ralph Lauren ad:

I'm still trying to understand who this is aimed at. It's apparently appealing to a man who likes the following:

• The sport of polo
• Tiny vintage sports cars
• Bright colours
• The music of OneRepublic
• The professional sports being shown when this ad runs
• Yachting
• Skydiving
• Football
• Hanging out with black people
• Women
• Dressing as a comically stereotypical rich person
• Shopping at mainstream department stores.

I'm not sure these people exist.