Screencap from "Blue Velvet"
Over the weekend I went out to see Morgan Spurlock’s new documentary, Pom Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold expecting to see an engaging film about the ridiculousness of product placement in films; and what I saw was Morgan Spurlock being Morgan Spurlock. It’s a funny and entertaining documentary but never really dug into the subject in a way that I was expecting him to. The best scene of the whole movie comes about when Quinton Tarantino talks about why Denny’s wouldn’t let him use them as a location in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction because Tarantino gives some validity to directors using name brand products within their by mentioning that they exist in the real world, but Spurlock never engages the subject past this and just moves on to shots of him washing a pony in bath tub. So, in light of the, what I considered, disappointing nature of the film I thought I’d write my post about the validity and pitfalls of product placement in films.
I don’t think there is any director more qualified to have an opinion on product placement other than David Lynch. What gives Lynch this qualification is that he recognizes the difference between just using a name brand product in his film and being paid to feature one; and yes there is a difference. Each brand carries with it a significant set of ideals and values that we attribute to the product based on the advertisements we’ve already seen, so when a director places a name brand product within their film they are actively engaging the audience’s conceptions of the product within the context of the film; they are using the brand as a cultural icon to say something about the character, narrative, or plot, not just trying to get you to buy something.
In Lynch’s film Blue Velvet the antagonist, Frank, talks about and makes frequent reference to Pabst Blue Ribbon beer; most famously in a scene where he screams at the top of his lungs “Heineken?! Fuck that shit! PABST BLUE RIBBON!” In the scene Lynch uses the two different beer brands to comment on the two different characters, drawing a distinction between them through the audience’s own knowledge of the distinction between the two beers. It’s funny, subversive, and smart, but most importantly it was done without Lynch being paid for it and the brands mentioned do not deter us from the action. Now if we compare the Blue Velvet scene with a scene from Disturbia the difference between using a product in a film and featuring it within a film becomes fairly obvious. Within the short 2:15 run time we see blatant product placement for several product which serve absolutely no service as icons within the context of the film.
In an interview with the filmmaker, Lynch says that product placement “putrefies the environment” of a film; and I think that his statement comes to fruition in the disparaging clip from Disturbia featured above. In the scene we are just bombarded with images and brands all with different and conflicting connotations which when viewed in that sort of rapid fire montage does nothing but create a white noise of thoughts competing for our attention and forcing us to neglect how sad Shia LeBouf is or whatever the scene is about.
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