False AdvertisingCan I have a McFlurry with that Whopper?The online publication MediaGuardian.co.uk ran a story that made me sit up straight in my ergonomic chair. I was informed that a "group of U.S. scientists has discovered that advertising can alter people's childhood memories, making them remember events that never happened" ("Ads Can Alter Memory Claim Scientists," Sept. 4, 2001). You mean I didn't drink beer on the beach with Spuds McKenzie? You mean that old lady who fell and couldn't get up really could get up? You mean actual mileage doesn't vary? The article continued: "Adults shown a mock advert in which Disney World visitors shake hands with a Bugs Bunny character became convinced they had done the same as a child." The results of the study, led by Professor Elizabeth Loftus at the University of Washington in Seattle, were unveiled in September at the University of Glasgow and are alleged to "be hugely significant for the advertising industry." THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTHThat's for sure. As the shrewd scientists were no doubt aware, Bugs Bunny is a Warner Brothers product, not Disney. So the subjects of their study couldn't possibly have remembered seeing a sardonic rabbit at Disney World. So, is this a huge significance for the advertising industry? Americans are easily led and often have sentimental attachments to memories of events that never occurred? Well that's probably all true, and the British are no doubt still gloating over our Yankee gullibility even as I write. "Adverts" indeed. But there's an even larger significance to this study, in my opinion. If you can convince some poor grown-ups that, as youngsters in knee pants, they got up close and personal with Bugs Bunny at Disney World, it proves that for all its relentless self-promotion over the years, Disney hasn't really done its job. I'll say it again: Bugs Bunny is not a Disney character. You'd think after all these years, this fact would be essential capitalist knowledge, like knowing that fast food is always found under golden arches, or the name of the store that has blue light specials. Bugs at Disney World? Even if he made his way through security, Goofy and the seven dwarves would tear him limb from limb. You know what they're like when threatened. They revert to savage beasts. FADING MEMORIES OR POP CULTURE PROGRAMMING?And maybe that's what happened. We don't know. We weren't there. (I don't think we were there.) Maybe these poor adults witnessed the dismembering of Bugs at Disney World and the memory was so shocking they repressed it — or transformed it into something a little more huggable. That's my theory. Or maybe these adults had never been to Disney World at all. What if they had moral objections to theme parks or simply couldn't afford to go to Disney World? Maybe by agreeing to be subjects for this scientific study, they were hoping to get free passes to Disney World (you know how gullible Americans are), and just told the scientists what they thought they wanted to hear: Bugs at Disney World? Yeah. Sure. I was there. I remember that. Where's my pass? Or it could be that their memories, like all of our memories, are now a hopeless jumble of Mickey Mouse, Ren and Stimpy, X-Files, the Superbowl, Omar Sharif, Walter Cronkite, Crocodile Dundee, and Britney Spears — all cavorting at the MTV Video Music Awards. It's a wonder anything is real to us. When pop culture jumps into the synapses, anything can happen. Hapless hippies, overhyped hoopsters, telegenic hicks, blowhard hams, would-be hipsters, and hippos in tutus coexist quite happily in America's hippocampus. To paraphrase Dashiell Hammett — it's all as real as a dime. Ian Shoales has a handle on reality, but chooses not to have a firm grip on it. He lives in San Francisco. |
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