Going too far?…
As of yesterday this image adorns Apple.com’s homepage. It comes as no surprise. Being a flag toting flower-power generation member, Apple CEO Steve Jobs claims all 60s icons as his (or more specifically Apple’s) possession. Correlating the passing of one of the most important individuals from the civil rights movement to a company slogan is outright exploitation. Yet, that fact is lost on Mr. Jobs.
While PBS shovels heaps of praise to the baby-boom hippies with documentaries on Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, and The Beatles, these artists once powerful anti-establishment voice have been subjugated to an ad slogan or a bumper sticker. Looking out the window right now I see a new VW Beetle streaming down the highway with a flower vase built into the dash.
Wasn’t this generation supposed to be against the marketing blitz? What happened to the spirit? The same people that spit on Vietnam soldiers as they returned from a failed contest have now dressed their SUVs with “support our troops” magnets. The 60’s generation may have garnished us with some great music but in comparison to generations past they have far less to celebrate about.
Look at the socialist movements of the 30’s and 40’s, the generation that pulled us from the worst financial depression ever to hit American soil. While doing so, this same generation created some of the most remarkable legislation and social tools this country has ever seen. The New Deal, Social Security, massive union organization, minimum wage, health care benefits, not too mention making corporations responsible for abusing employees.
In my eyes, the 30’s and 40’s were the activist generation, not the 60’s. Yes, civil rights were born out of the 60’s, and The Rolling Stones started making music in the 60’s but this “greatest generation ever” attitude needs to take a backseat. 60’s worship needs to be put out to pasture.
I find it meaningless to divide any movement into artificial 10 year spans. The Civil Rights movement didn’t start in the 60s. Rosa Parks’ refusal to change her bus seat happened in 1955. We can go back to pre-civil war to find abolitionists saying things very similar to the famous words of Martin Luther King. Every generation since the industrial revolution has experienced drastic change, it just seems like a new generation comes to power, they like to glorify the generation of their youth. We are already seeing some glorification of the 80’s (yikes!).
As for the Apple ad, it also strikes me as exploitive. If Apple really wanted to honor Rosa Parks, they should not have used their slogan on the picture. But where is the line between a company choosing to honor a person and exploiting them? Would it still be exploitive if it didn’t say “think different?” What if it said, “Apple would like to pay honor to Rosa Parks, a brave woman who dared to think different”? What if it said “Apple would like to honor Rosa Parks by donating $1 Million to the NAACP”? Are these exploitive? Does a company always exploit a person when they use their image as a form of advertising or to enhance their public image?
There is certainly a difference between just exploiting the image of a Civil Rights movement hero for marketing purposes and donating $1m to NAACP, but it wouldn’t do wonders for Jobs’ street cred – he hasn’t got any. The image of a washed-out, hypocritical baby-boomer always brings to mind Hardenberg, the capitalist character from Hans Weingartner’s movie The Edukators. It may be foreign, but it really is one of the most articulate films of 2005.
I do too, but that’s exactly what modern society does.
Yes. If an entity’s main purpose is to sell a product any imagery that entity chooses to place alongside its product will inevitably be correlated with its product(s) and namesake.
Sylvia, I’ve never heard of The Edukators. Thanks for the recommendation!