St Edwards University - Tower Yearbook (Austin, TX)

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The American Obsession With Fun I n John Barth’s The End of The Road, Jacob Horner describes a dream he once had in which, after several futile attempts to find out the weather fore- cast, he learns from the chief meteorologist that there simply will not be any weather the next day. He tells us about the dream in order to explain a particular state of mind that he often experiences, a state he has come to call “weatherless.” Though analogies be- tween moods and weather are commonplace, Horner questions their appropriateness in his case because a day without weather is almost impossible to imagine, and yet he frequently has days without any mood at all. At such times Horner is without a personality, is nonexistent in his own mind, except in the purely physical sense. He compares himself to those micro- scopic specimens that must be dyed before they can be seen: Horner needs to be colored by some mood or other in order to recognize himself. On his weatherless days he sits blankly in his rocking chair, rocking sometimes for hours until some external event colors him back into being . . . I have a friend, a teacher at a junior college in a large midwestern city, who sometimes suffers similar periods of weatherlessness. Her attacks are less severe and less pervasive than Jacob Horner’s: I think they are, in part, just a defense against being overwhelmed by modern urban living. Nevertheless, finding your- self in the company of someone who is in no mood at all is an unsettling experience. You just plain don’t know how to act, since nothing you say or do seems to matter. There is nothing to interact with, no mood, emotion, or viewpoint to oppose or compli- ment. You can’t cheer your friend up, because she’s not sad; you can’t convince her of anything, because she’s all too agreeable; and you can’t make her feel better, because she doesn’t feel bad. A few years ago, when I was visiting my friend during one of her weatherless bouts, I became exasperated and then saddened by my own helplessness in the situation. But as the weekend wore on, my sadness, interest- ingly enough; dissolved itself into moodlessness, too, so that finally the two of us sat there staring vacantly into space and feeling quite at home with each other... Well, the coincidental relationship among my friends and me and Jacob Horner and weatherlessness and Pepsi-Cola ads all came together in an intriguing way when I recently reread The End of the Road. | began to listen carefully to Pepsi ads and then to Coke ads, and, as is usually the case when advertising is analyzed, I learned much less about the products than about the public for which the ads are de- signed ... My friend and I knew instinctively to turn on the television that weatherless Saturday night, although neither of us is an avid viewer. I would venture to guess that the difference between us and many full- time TV addicts is that we were quite conscious of our moodlessness because, for us, it is a sometime thing. Those who lack the strength to live lives of | feeling, and in whom the sense of self is always ill- defined, are no doubt much less conscious of that state, although they may vaguely sense that some- thing is missing from their lives. The price they pay |. for avoiding the pain of being fully alive is that they are excluded from the pleasure of it as well. They are, therefore, always tempted by any promise of | pleasure, hoping that perhaps this time it will not elude them. I understood the most sinister aspect of the phenomenon Vance Packard termed “hidden persua- sion” when I began to consider what it might mean to be weatherless most of. the time and not even realize it. There is nothing obviously “hidden” about what the Pepsi ad is saying; in fact, upon close examination it is hard to believe how straightforward the words are. But the psychological success of the commercial depends upon a lack of self-awareness in the viewer. For while it gives the impression of appealing to the “living” and those with a “‘zest for life,” the ad is actually aimed at the “dead” who experience so little pleasure that they need something to help them “come alive.” A complex and subtle use of the concept of love lies behind the familiar Coca-Cola commercial in which young people from all over the world are brought together on a hilltop in Italy, where they sing (in perfect harmony): I'd like to teach the world to sing In perfect harmony. I'd like to buy the world a Coke And keep it company. I find the appeal of this ad, the music combined with the idea of buying the world a Coke, almost irresistible, a fact that disturbs me when I consider its implications. For one thing, the ad embodies the all too American theory and practice of buying good will, friendship, or even love. This notion is so pervasive at every level of our society that it is pretty much taken for granted—and for some reason has always been neatly associated with Coca-Cola. I remember that when I was in junior high school, if a guy bought me a Coke it was the first sign he was “interested” in me; later, if the relationship turned out to be “the real thing,” he might ask you to go steady with him. The ad illustrates perfectly, if unintentionally, how this economic aspect of court- ship is projected onto the global plane in American foreign relations. We are always happy to buy the world a Coke if we believe that this will keep it in our “company ” rather than the Soviet Union’s or China’s. (I am incidentally reminded of that outrageous scene

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% Once the symbol of triumphant homecoming for American servicemen from a job well done, San Francisco’s Golden Gate soberly welcomed a new generation of soldiers from a job that... well, was simply done. 199 sigiereres ELST SSF

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in Dr. Strangelove in which Peter Sellers is begging Keenan Wynn to shoot open the com box of a Coke machine so he can get a dime to call the President and explain why the world may be about to end. Keenan Wynn reluctantly complies with the request, saying, “Okay, but you're gonna have to answer to the Coca-Cola Company for this.”’) Of course, this kind of sociological analysis is somewhat remote from the ad’s ability to touch people emotionally. On a more personal level, I think it appeals to that sense of com- munity that many of us long for but so rarely experience in contemporary urban life—in fact, you may have lost the knack to experience. The irony about an idea like buying the world a Coke and keeping it company, though, is that it is so abstract it can be employed only in the mind, which means everyone has to experience it alone. Still, the ad always puts me in a mood of buoyancy and good will, although then I don't quite know what to do with these feelings. The words and music inevitably make me smile and think any day now I will begin to show the world all the love I have in my heart, but, need- less to say, I never do. Unfortunately, the “world” is made up of individual people, any one of whom is much more difficult to love than is mankind in general. [ can sit alone and respond to that ad with a sense of joy; but later that same day, if I see an acquaintance who doesn’t see me in the supermarket, [ may still duck down some aisle and linger behind the shelves until he or she is out of sight. It is not that I dislike the person but that I wish to avoid the degree of involvement required for even the most casual conversation. What makes the jingle in the Coke ad so appealing is that it allows you to participate momentarily in a kind of love that is not dangerous or painful to you, a kind that makes no demands. Actually, loving an- other individual (the real “real thing’’) always involves the terrible risk of being hurt, which simply does not enter into the notion of buying the world a Coke and keeping it company. Ann Nietzke From “The American Obsession with Fun” Copyright 1972 Saturday Review, Inc., August 26, 1972 201 pe