In an event chock-full of critical analysis of capitalism and the television commercials it spawns, The Schmio Awards were held at New York University’s Cantor Film Center last week (4/27). Created as a response to the Clio Awards, the Schmios represent an effort to highlight and criticize the advertising industry’s promotion of dubious lifestyles (such as smoking and drinking) and ideologies (i.e.-that consumption is the solution to any problem). Schmios are bestowed upon the past year’s biggest offenders.
In speeches peppered with disgust, anger, and humor, many of the award presenters criticized the implicit and explicit messages and strategies that are used in many of the Schmio-winning ads. Now in its third year, the event was sponsored by a host of organizations including The Media Literacy Club at NYU, the New Mexico Media Literacy Project, the Center for Analysis of Commercialism and Education, and the Media Education Foundation. The evening’s emcee was Neil Postman, an author and professor at NYU who is chair of the university’s Department of Culture and Communication.
The theme for this year’s Schmios was "Better Living Through Chemistry: Health, Beauty, and Spirituality." Snackwells’ Crackers garnered the first spot award, for "Best Gross Misjudgment in Making a False Claim for a Low Calorie Packaged Food." The spot in question featured a feel-good promo with lush images of happy people that linked eating Snackwells’ with a transcendent state of being. Following that Schmio, a "Supplementing the Trust in Supplement Ads Award" was given to Quanterra, the manufacturer of a ginseng supplement. In its spot, the company claims that ginseng can increase mental and physical well-being. A number of scientific studies have shown that ginseng has absolutely no relation to physical and mental states.
An ad that seemed to generate a good dose of outrage was "Capitalism," a spot for Levi’s in which a young woman dressed in jeans unabashedly spouts her thoughts about the rewards of capitalism. Among other assertions, the young woman says that hard work should lead to financial rewards and states that she has no qualms with the inequalities inherent in a capitalist system. The spot was awarded "The Shop ‘Til You Drop Social Theory Award" and was presented by Bob McChesney, a professor at the University of Illinois.
Citing what he regarded as the vitriolic and mean-spirited tone of the ad, McChesney assailed its underlying assumptions that he said perpetuated a number of "big lies about capitalism." These included: the concept that capitalism is based on competition (instead, he said, it’s based on the elimination of competition); the idea that the state is the enemy of the free market (McChesney pointed out that government in many instances subsidizes corporations); and the premise that the people "who do the hard work get the extras." On the latter point, McChesney cited the hypocrisy of Levi’s-a company which he said has had some trouble with labor unrest due to poor working conditions-creating an ad based on the premise that hard work will lead to financial success. After all, McChesney noted, Levi’s factory workers are not reaping the level of financial rewards that the company’s owners and stockholders are.
McChesney concluded that the spot asked its viewers to "get ready for a new world order in global capitalism where there are going to be body bags on the way to the mall that you can’t have the time to worry about."
The "Lifetime of Dubious Achievement Award" was presented to Anheuser-Busch by Bob McCannon, the director of the New Mexico Media Literacy Project. McCannon cited the cynical and sometimes subtle strategies Budweiser has used to market its products to target populations such as under-age drinkers and alcoholics. One example of this is allegedly using sly approaches to get these populations to identify with characters and strategies in the ads, and the company was critiqued for appealing to "people who have to hide to drink."
Mark Crispin Miller, a professor of media studies at NYU, presented "The Edward Teller Prize for the Best Depiction of the Toxic Life" to Taco Bell for "Bus." In that spot, the familiar Taco Bell canine mascot compels the driver of a packed bus to speed after a mother in a minivan. After screeching dangerously through her neighborhood, the mother eludes the bus to arrive home to her family, who appear to be lobotomized specimens out of Brave New World. The ad also features former Fantasy Island host Ricardo Montalban, who appears to frame the mother’s arrival at her home.
Despite its attempted irony using Montalban’s presence, the ad, said Miller, conjured a "wasteland" that nobody wanted to experience. He added at one point that "the high of [Taco Bell’s] fatty food is not all that different than that gained from the fantasies of vicarious empowerment through use of technology" present in the spot and generally rampant in advertising. Miller noted that the ad was representative of the way in which advertising "leads to a propaganda that creates a richly poisonous reality" that is "diametrically opposed to the Socratic notion of the ‘good life.’ "
