ReGeneration Page #4

of experimental films,

so, why don't we package

some of our really powerful messages

into thirty and sixty second packets

and try to raise a little bit of money,

and actually air them on television?

In your living room is the factory.

The product being manufactured...

is you.

Over the last ten years here

at Adbusters we have produced

dozens of thirty-second social messages

that tackle all the big issues of our time,

from obesity to media concentration

to climate change.

And when we approached ABC and NBC

and CBS and MTV and Fox,

and tried to buy 30 seconds of airtime

to air some of these messages of ours,

they all said no.

So,

what does that tell you?

It tells you that our public airwaves

aren't public anymore.

That we, the people,

own those public airwaves.

They legally belong to you and me,

and the FCC leases those airwaves

out to the broadcasters

who are then supposed to act in,

of course in their own business interest,

but also in the public interest

and they do not.

These guys have six million

dollars to spend.

We are not going to sell you a lousy

twenty-five thousand dollars of airtime

for your spot and then piss of these

multimillion dollar sponsors that we have.

That was a big shock for me at that time.

I was a guy who was born in Estonia,

and in my country

for fifty years you weren't allowed

to speak back against the government.

You weren't...

and if you did speak back

against the government,

they'd put you in a mental asylum

or you'd suffer in some other way.

You'd never get a decent job or whatever.

And here I was, many years later in this

cradle of democracy,

the land of the free here,

and all of a sudden I discover that,

here, you are not allowed

to speak back against the sponsor.

They spend more time watching television

everybody believes that when you're

spending more time with the media

than you are in the classroom,

the media have a profound impact

upon your life as well.

Dr. Kunkel, thank you very much

for joining us today

and I look forward to your testimony.

Thank you. Good afternoon Mr. Chairman.

With the help of a number

of fine colleagues,

including several who are

here with us today,

I've conducted extensive research on

media content and effects over the years.

Advertisers claim that kids today are more

savvy than they've ever been in the past,

but when you really get down to it in

terms of children's cognitive abilities,

an eight year old today

doesn't understand the persuasive intent

of advertisements any better

than an eight year old in the past did,

say, when I was a child.

And a magic box turns the TV into a safe

and happy haven. Simply what matters.

And, in fact, what the evidence

shows is that

the more the kids are immersed

in the consumer culture,

the more they're exposed

to these messages,

the more unhealthy they are,

the more they're depressed,

the more they're anxious, the more

they have problems with their parents.

It is a form of systematic child abuse

and I think it is absolutely crazy.

There is a lot of truth to the notion

that kids are bombarded with advertising

for things that are not particularly

healthy for them.

No question that large

numbers of young children

have televisions in their own rooms.

Who's to blame here?

The parents!

Let me tell you my schedule, ok?

I get up in the morning at six o'clock.

I am out of the door by seven o'clock.

It takes me an hour to get to work.

So I get there at eight o'clock,

and I'm there until five.

I drive an hour back home,

I get home at six.

We cook dinner,

we give him a bath,

we clean up the house a bit.

It's now about seven thirty

by the time everything's done.

He goes to bed at eight o'clock.

We don't have the time to sit there and

calculate what they're watching,

and when and where and how.

You can't be there every minute

of the day, you can't.

The media industries,

of course, always tell us,

"Isn't it just the

parents' responsibility?"

And then they spend

hundreds of billions of dollars

to influence the child

to influence the parent.

Mom, I need one minute.

One teensy-weensy minute

to make your day, 'cause I've got

with me the toy

that could change

the way you look at toys.

I'm sold.

And if the parents would say 'no'

billions and billions of times based

on the billions of requests

that are based on billions

of influence attempts

that come from all the commercials,

all would be well.

But surprise!

Parents like to please their children.

When you have a culture of people

who spend four to five hours a day

watching television,

and every seven minutes

there's two minutes of commercials,

over and over,

we've become familiar.

And when we go into the store

and see that thing,

subconsciously,

when we pick that up and buy it,

there's a certain amount

of comfort that comes with that.

Certain amount of safety.

I know I learned in class that,

when we learned about advertising

in Health class or somewhere,

that it influences you,

even if you don't think it does.

But, I am not a materialistic

person at all,

I don't care about... Shush!

I'm not! I'm not like,

"Oh my god, I have to have the shiny car

and I have to have this."

I'm just really happy

with whatever I have.

I don't ask for a lot, and I don't get

influenced by billboards saying...

- Where is your iPod right now?

- Shhh, you know what...

The one that you have plugged

into your ear all day?

I like it because of the music,

not because it's shiny or expensive.

Like it's never advertised, ever.

I don't think that it's possible

to grow up in a culture

where, from the moment

you were a little baby crawling

around the TV set in your living room,

you've been told

a certain kind of a message

and you've been told

that certain brands are really cool.

And then when you're a teenager

or in your early twenties,

you can suddenly sit back and say,

"No, no, this hasn't had

any effect on me."

Bullshit! It's had a profound

effect on you.

When I talk about consumer culture

and I talk about how consumerism

tries to define who we are,

I raised this question in one

of my classes and I said,

"Why do you think Americans

buy diamond rings

when they want to get engaged

to someone and is that natural?"

And people did not

know the answer to that.

And, of course, we know this

is a fairly recent phenomenon:

It's the diamond industry that makes

this move through advertising

to associate a diamond ring.

And so the student

raises her hand and says,

"Yeah, okay, I get that.

It's all very well,

but I still feel if my fianc doesn't

give me a two karat diamond ring,

if he gives me anything less than that,

I'll throw it back in his face."

Now, the good thing about that comment

is that everybody else in that class went,

"What?"

and it was a great learning moment

because then we could explore:

Why do you think that way?

Where do you get these ideas from?

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