Captivity Billboards - inescapable images

Five days a week, my eight year old son Ezra takes a ride on the billboard express as we drive straight through the heart of Hollywood on our way to his school. We take note of the seasonal changes in the Coca Cola billboard at Franklin and Cahuenga. The Rouge Gentlemen’s Club billboard on Franklin at the 101 has afforded us the opportunity to discuss the purpose of a “gentlemen’s club.”

When Ezra was in kindergarten and not yet reading, he asked me about the billboards. “I know what they are he said, but what are they for, Mommy?” I explained that companies that want to sell something pay for the pictures. It works like this I told him. You see the billboard, you think to yourself, gee would it be nice to drink some Coke, see that movie. He laughed and said, “Ha ha Mommy, who would want to buy something just because they saw an advertisement?” And with perfect timing, his two year old brother sitting next to him caught sight of an enormous Spider Man billboard. “Spiderman!” he exclaimed. “I like that movie. I want to see that movie.” Our little consumer impressed us all the more because he had somehow managed to acquire this desire without ever watching commercial television, attending preschool, or seeing a movie.

I told my friend Lesley this story and she shared one of her own: A few years ago her six year old daughter, newly literate, caught sight of a giant Carney’s billboard with a picture of a hot dog. Under the picture were the words “Better than sex.” She read the slogan out loud and looked at her mom. Sex must not be very good, this six year old, no lover of hot dogs, reasoned.

This week I feel like our drive through Hollywood has turned into an R-rated version of Mr. Toad’s wild ride. As we turned onto Hollywood Boulevard from Normandie, two enormous billboards advertising the new Lionsgate/After Dark Film “Captivity” popped up, treating my kids to a deeply disturbing and terrifying set of images.

When parents despair at the onslaught of advertising aimed at our children we are often told to do our job, just say no, to be the gatekeepers. But this type of advertising would require that we hunker down in our house and not leave, or design and redesign elaborate travel routes that manage to avoid the omnipresent billboards.

Last month, the LA city council approved a controversial settlement with billboard industry giants Clear Channel Outdoor Inc. and CBS Outdoor Inc. which advocates fighting billboards characterized as a capitulation to the industry because it affords amnesty to signs that were erected illegally and allows upgrades to existing signs including second faces, digital fronts and movable slats.In the Los Angeles Times, Gerald Silver, co-founder of the Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight called the settlement "an aesthetic and environmental disaster.” But the proliferation of billboards in our community is more than that. It creates the opportunity for corporations to enter our children’s lives without our consent and confront them with inescapable images of violence.

Creating community standards about what is obscene is a tricky business, and I won’t argue with our citizenry’s rights to sit in a dark movie theater and be entertained by sadism and torture. But I would ask that my child’s route home from school not include an inescapable detour into the world these images conjure.

In August of last year, a group of Angelinos were turned down when they tried to buy billboard space for a proposed sign of Mel Gibson’s face with the international sign for “no” over it in red. If the corporations that currently define our community standards are willing to draw the line at their own bottom line and decline an opportunity to denounce Gibson’s anti-Semitism, surely they can forgo a few bucks to keep my kids from having nightmares.

Captive Audience

This week, a flight attendant on a Delta flight told a woman that she was offended by her breastfeeding. When the woman refused to cover up, she was asked to leave the airplane. I checked the Delta listings to find out what movies they are playing this month, and the PG-13 rated fare includes My Super Ex Girlfriend and Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest.

So engaging in an arguably constitutionally protected activity (breastfeeding) was deemed offensive, but Pirates of the Carribean, which was rated PG-13 for "intense sequences of adventure violence, including frightening images." is okay to show on screens that children can view.

Junk Food Marketing through Movies

In today's LA Times, Patrick Goldstein writes about how Hollywood executives can't pass up the millions they make by marketing junk food to kids through movie tie-ins. Goldstein quotes Universal Chairman Marc Schmuger making the "freedom of choice" argument. He states

We're not forcing anyone to eat fast food. We're encouraging people to have freedom of choice. It's up to the individual or the family to decide where they want to eat. It is easy for corporations to lay all of the responsibility on parents, but what they don't acknowledge is that each year companies spend $15 BILLION on marketing directly to children. Companies market to kids in every aspect of their lives, billboards on the way to school, in school, on television. Even PBS, which used to be a bastion of commercial free space is now almost indistinguishable from their corporate comrades.

In her book Consuming Kids, Susan Linn asks which battle are parents supposed to choose? The junk food, violent video games, TV, precocious sexuality?

In her article, Disney's PR Strategy Unhealthy for 'Little Consumers Michele Simon brilliantly explains why Disney and the rest of the media industry cannot police themselves when it comes to marketing junk food to kids. She writes

Disney's announcement amounts to little more than an excuse to keep its brand in front of kids. By setting nutrition guidelines -- as opposed to stopping the promotionof cartoon-branded food altogether, as many child advocates are calling for -- Disney has cleverly given itself an entirely new marketing opportunity. According to the company 's press release, "Disney Consumer Products has already begun to offer many licensed products which comply with the guidelines. They include breakfast items such as instant oatmeal featuring characters like The Incredibles and Kim Possible, and Disney Garden fresh produce such as kid-sized apples and bananas." I've never heard of "kid-sized" fruit.

While Disney is telling us its motivation is children's health, the company's true goal is to get parents to keep buying its products and visiting its theme parks, and most importantly, to keep the Disney brand in front of kids' eyes. So now cartoon characters will market allegedly healthier foods to kids. But children don't need the Incredibles to tell them when and what to eat. Kids, like adults, get hungry all by themselves. That's how nature designed us. If companies like Disney would simply get out of the way, parents would have a much easier job.

Last year's Narnia is another example of the way a film can become an advertising juggernaut. In his article The Commercialization of Narnia in Mothering Magazine Josh Golin describes how Narnia, a "family friendly" movies was launched with $150 million of corporate tie-ins including Narnia Happy Meals at McDonald's. A book that for many kids was a private enchanted land was turned into a marketing extravaganza.

I am thrilled that someone in LA is writing about these issues, but here in the belly of the beast, the studios seem reluctant at best to reflect on the ethics of their marketing strategies that involve children. Goldstein focuses on the obesity aspect, and wonders if Shrek shouldn't be selling his soul for a happy meal. What Goldstein, new to this issue, doesn't realize, is that Hollywood isn't just trying to sell junk food to kids. Movies marketed to kids often also come with a large serving of violence, gender stereotypes, and excessive consumerism as well.

Dreaming of a Commercial Free LA

Last month I attended the annual summit of the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood. I spent two days immersed in information about how our culture attempts to commercialize almost every aspect of children's lives with the intention of wringing profit from children's daily activities--playing, eating, learning. It is overwhelming to realize how pervasive and powerful commercial forces are in our society, but it is also encouraging that there are many many individuals and organizations working to counter the attempt to define our lives through what we have and what we buy rather than who we are and what we do.

The conference speakers presented examples of how commercialism affects the development, experience and possibilities for today's children and youth. Some of the speakers included Jean Kilbourne, author of Can't Buy My Love; Susan Linn, author of Consuming Kids; Joe Kelly, president of Dad's and Daughters; Diane Levin, author of The War Play Dilemma; Michael Rich from the Center on Media and Child Health; and Alex Molnar, author of Giving Kids the Business.

I thought I would start this blog in order to share information about these issues and provide a forum for interested folks in LA.

To start things off, and with the holidays approaching, I wanted to share some resources with you that might offer some help in choosing gifts for kids and adults, and some alternative to the consumerist madness that blankets us this time of year.

First, for some guidance about toys that encourage peaceful and creative play take a look at the toy guide from T.R.U.C.E. Unfortunately, this guide doesn't cover kids past the age of 7 or 8. (Even though it seems harder and harder to find kids older than 8 who actually play with toys rather than use media platforms, I believe a toy guide for older kids would be great...)

The Center for a New American Dream has a great set of resources for how to simplify your holidays. If you sign up on their website, you can download a their holiday guide, as well as other publications about kids and commercialism.