I DON'T WANNA GROW UP I'M IMPALED ON A FENCE 11-25-03
I saw the weirdest Juxtoposition of art and advertising on TV a while back and decided to mention it now. On Lifetime Network (don't ask, I was just flipping around) they were playing "the Virgin Suicides" I don't know if you've ever seen this movie. Very good, and also very grim.
Well, I was just watching this one scene because I wanted to see if they would edit it for TV. Also cause I enjoy the Kirsten Dunst Scenes. In the scene I'm talking about though, the littlest sister in a family of five is depressed and tries killing her self by slitting her wrists. When she gets back from the hospital her doctor suggests to her parents that they throw her a birthday party.
So they have the party and the little girl asks to be excused. She goes up to stairs, jumps out the window and impales herself on the gridiron fence in the front yard. The mother screams in horror as the young boys at the party walk out in shock. A very powerfully disturbing scene, especially as the retarded boy from their school who was at the party comes out of the house confused and frightened (And yes they showed it).
Now, you see this scene of horror and distress. It puts you in a weird uncomfortable place, and leaves you very uneasy. BUT-This threw me for a loop- with this airing of the film, the station immediatly cut to a commercial with a close up of a birthday cake...and we hear "for Geofrey's birthday we've decided to give our customers a gift. TheToys R' Us song starts playing. "I don't want to grow up, I'm a Toys R' Us kid. Etc. . . . .
What an oddball juxtopositon of emotion. It freaked me out man. . .seriously.
It's like, what marketing genius at Toys R' Us thought that this would be the opportune time to sell toys? But then I thought a little deeper into it. Maybe there is something there. This is a woman's network. The girl was having a birthday party. She kills herself.
But she never opened a present.
Maybe if the mother in the movie was a better parent, and took the daughter to a God damn Toys R' Us once in a while, she wouldn't have been so depressed! See how happy the customers are for Geofry's birthday! Cause they are having a birthday in a friggen toy store! That's what makes kids happy! Toys! Consume, you bad mother, buy your kid shit! When their daughter has a birthday. . .all the mothers who watched this movie on lifetime for the first time, will forever remember (maybe only subconciously) the tramatic scene and know that your daughter will be safe, if you just buy all her presents at Toys R' Us!
Or it could just be that Toys R' Us bought commercial time at that point in the night no matter what movie Lifetime was playing... but I like my theory better.
Just another day in the life of an Art Juggernaut.
-Cojo
