Liberal causes become selling points, literally – Press & Sun-Bulletin

Christian Schneider 10:05 a.m. ET April 24, 2017

Christian Schneider(Photo: File)

Anyone who hasn't had the opportunity to listen to pop songstress Katy Perry's recentsong"Chained to the Rhythm" is missing one ofthe most awfulpieces of music to ever be inflicted upon the American public.

By the time you hear Perry warble, "So comfortable, we live in a bubble, a bubble / So comfortable, we cannot see the trouble, the trouble," your ears will have filed for divorce.

Yet upon its release, this aural Antietam receivedpositive reviewsin large part because it reflected Perry's new "political activism." (Indeed, this must be truefor, on her Twitterprofile, Perry describes herself as anactivist.)

"Perrys fed up with the complacency of the capitalist entertainment culture that she has thrived off," chirped The Atlantic, comparing the song's theme to that of Sinclair Lewis' classic political novel "Babbitt."

But rather than some foundational political anthem, Perry's song is simply a series of microwaved liberal bromides repackaged and sold back to liberals. It's a tried-and-true formula: Masquerade lefty culture as "consciousness," and you make your terrible art critic-proof.

Recently, liberals and conservatives alike roundly mocked anInternet adproduced by Pepsi that tried to cash in on today's left-wing protest culture. In the ad, which stars the inexplicably famous Kendall Jenner, a multicultural group of young, thin demonstrators march through city streets demanding something.

Wielding peace signs and offers to "join the conversation," the marchers stare down a line of menacing police officers until Jenner offers a cop a Pepsi, at which point he seems to say to himself, "this 50-cent carbonated beverage has rendered my crowd control manual obsolete, and I, therefore, willnot tear gas these morons."

Liberals recoiled at the ad, accusing it of stealing imagery from the Black Lives Matter movement and minimizing the issue of police brutality. Pepsiapologizedand "pulled" the ad, whatever that means it is still readily available online and also apologized to Jenner.

But Pepsi's only crime is making the lame repurposing of progressivism so nakedly obvious.

Corporations always try to capture the zeitgeist and monetize it; ask any child of the "grunge" era who began to see ripped jeans and large flannel shirts in J.C. Penney catalogs. And when political issues bubble up, they take their place next to the Geico gecko and the Most Interesting Man in the World as tools to move product.

Take, for example, Audi's embarrassingSuper Bowl adthis year, which tried to tangentially relate selling cars to women being paid less in the workplace. In the spot, a father watches his daughter compete in a soapbox derby-type race, wondering whether he should have to tell her that no matter her qualifications, "she will automatically be valued as less than every man she ever meets." The ad ends by saying Audi of America is "committed to equal pay for equal work."

Evidently, no members of Audi'sall-maleBoard of Management are aware that the "wage gap" is completenonsense, having been debunked byscoresoffact-checkers. While there is a disparity in pay among men and women, it is almost entirely the result of different choices the genders make in pursuit of their careers. Control for those factors and the gap all but disappears.

Of course, progressives didn't protest this pandering, as it aided their larger cause. They were conveniently unconcerned that a corporation was stealing their platform to sell cars Audi furthered the narrative, so they ate it up.

All the Hillary Clinton voters who railed against corporations having political free speech rights suddenly disappeared.

Democrats should be more concerned about the cynicism that propels such ads; these companies are taking caricatures of liberals and trying to get youngconsumers to buy them, just like any other commodity.

The Pepsi ad went too far because the caricature was too broad,but it's the same idea that has saturated advertising for decades:"Lefty activism is hot, so let's try to sell it to younger people who don't know better!"

Naturally, there's nothing wrong with using free-market capitalism to trick liberals into buying products. Anyone who bought a Coke in 1971 because ahippie sang them a nice songwas helping the economy and creating jobs.

But the left should realize these ads are meant to trigger the same basic response in them that videos of Big Macs are supposed to trigger in hungry people. Just don't be surprised when Mayor McCheese starts wearing a pink knit hat.

You can contact Christian Schneider at cschneider@jrn.com.

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Liberal causes become selling points, literally - Press & Sun-Bulletin