The Death of Subtlety

From today's Los Angeles Times:

"Product placement apparently isn't cutting it in the movie business anymore. Not satisfied, say, with a mere passing shot of a mega-star munching a Whopper, Burger King is developing a film whose main character lives above one of its burger franchises, according to a story in this week's Advertising Age."

"No, it's not a horror film. And it's almost not going to be what would seem like the natural sequel to 2004's nutty teenage comedy "Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle." Instead, Burger King, along with ad agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky, which is overseeing the script, envision a "character-driven" story along the lines of "Garden State" and "What's Eating Gilbert Grape".

The sad thing is that stuff like this is already taking place. I recently read a teen novel for a company I work for, in which a lot of the action took place in a nationwide clothing store. Sure enough, if you check the copyright page of the book, it came from that store's book division.

Writing a movie script like this for an ad agency has to be one of the biggest forms of hackwork available -- I think I'd rather write Freddy Got Fingered 2. There are already plenty of dubious reasons why scripts are made; commissioning one whose sole raison d'etre is to have characters living above a Burger King has to be a new low.

I'm already imagining inevitable sequences. Visiting characters comment on the wonderful smells coming from below. The main characters eat there constantly, though naturally they will be trim and fit, and still be able to have sex without breathing heavily (though they may stop midpump to grab a handful of fries).

Emotional sequences will take place in Burger King booths, which will be mysteriously absent graffiti or passing homeless people eyeing the remains of the main character's burger. Unless of course the homeless person is charming and/or played by Mickey Rooney, with important wisdom to offer our hero ("try the shakes, they're 72% natural!").

The worst thing is that there just doesn't seem to be any attempt at subtlety any more. Don't these companies realize that the only way to actually pull off something as blatantly manipulative and misconceived as this is to be beyond secretive about it?

Don't they realize that, if there was a hint of a sense that White Castle had bankrolled Harold & Kumar (note: I don't think they did) that the movie completely would have lost its sense of cool, as well as 90% of the audience that did go see it?

Of course, maybe that's the answer. If every attempt to do this is outed, and there is enough public outrage, then movies will be made for the right reasons again -- violence and nudity.