making your voice heard
This is little more than another be-khaki-ed white boy shouting at the night sky, but something must be said: these new Gap ads are horrible. You know the ones — Sarah Jessica Parker, all miniskirt and gristle, whirling around while Lenny Kravitz pretends to play guitar in various positions against the requisite white background.
Look, I understand that no one mourns the death of Jimi Hendrix, the unreliability of Vernon Reid, and the lack of other high-profile black rock stars more than the Gap marketing department. But that doesn't justify putting money in the sweaty leather pockets of a serial plagiarist like Lenny Kravitz.
To be fair, Gap is a victim here, too: somewhere in the last few years MTV decided they might like to have a conventional rock star to kick around after all, so they grabbed Lenny and made an entire awards-show crop of aspiring has-beens pay homage to him as if he were one of rock's elder statesmen. How could he not be? He's got Hendrix's skin tone, Bono's glasses, and dresses like Prince's square older brother: there's a poster of him on the bedroom wall of every teenage focus group. You can see how advertising types might get suckered into pairing this hack with the ghoulish but perceived-to-be-popular Parker.
So why complain? Well, I flatter myself, but I like to think that somewhere out there, in a glass tower filled with blonde wood and tall people in moderately priced sweaters, there's a fresh-faced intern compiling a powerpoint for the marketing department. And maybe, just maybe, there's a slide with the word "blogs" in it. If there's even the remotest chance that I can be part of the red slice on that 3D pie chart, I have to try.
UPDATE: non-snarky disclaimer after the jump
It now occurs to me (and should have before) that this post does to Lenny Kravitz exactly what Rush Limbaugh did to Donovan McNabb last year (except, of course, to a much smaller audience). And that's not the kind of rhetorical company I'd like keep.
Still, I can't convince myself that the charge isn't accurate in this case. Lenny never would have become as famous as he is if there weren't a serious lack of marketable black rock stars. Which isn't to deny that there are black rock musicians out there (or that many of them are excellent), just that I don't think TV on the Radio or Beauty Pill is likely to be on TRL anytime soon.
Comments
And that red, 3D slice is saying... Hootie?
i thought the target ads with kravitz were bad, but the gap ones are infinitely worse. ugh. lenny kravitz. ugh. if there is any more mediocre famous musician, i can't think of it.
Smashmouth, Sugar Ray, and Chad Kroeger come to mind. By the way, I am writing this screaming down the Merrett Parkway in a stolen BMW on a blackberry and it's pretty sweet. America rules, you can get the internet pretty much anywhere
oh yeah, totally forgot about smashmouth. that is the #1 most sell-out mediocre band in the world. lenny's up there though.
So, I've been "talked in to" defending my man... ;-) Honestly, Lenny isn't looking that hot these days, but I like the Gap commercials. Maybe I'm just way in to mediocre famous musicians, but I like Lenny and most of his music. I think that there are a lot worse mediocre musicians out there and I don't even put Lenny in to the same category as Smashmouth, Sugar Ray, Hootie, etc. But that's just me...I love Bon Jovi (so that says a lot). :-)
I also love SJP...I think that she is cute and no matter how much you guys don't like Sex and the City or SJP you have to admit that girls are in love with them and obviously that's who they are trying to speak to in the ad.
Anyway, enough for me...I'm not a very good at debates...and I honestly don't even like them most of the time. So don't use your big words on me (Tommy)...be easy and understand that I just had to defend my man b/c "he's so HOTT" :-)
I have to strongly disagree with your assessment of LK, Tommy, if only for the fact that, um, there's lots of black performers to be seen on MTV. Maybe not within the shitty rock genre, but Outkast?
As for LK, well, people often exhibit astonishingly bad taste in music (sorry, Becca), and that umbrella might be enough to explain it. I think he made a splash for being a 70s retro pioneer, a gamble that's paid off pretty well as far as cultural currency goes.
I meant to say, "Outkast is certainly playing rock music," somewhere up in there.
Becca, you'll find no Bon Jovi disparaging coming from here. Charles will tell you that "Runaway" is his finest work, but I'm a sucker for "Livin' On A Prayer". I also don't really have anything against Sarah Jessica Parker -- I just liked the phrase "miniskirt & gristle".
Kriston, re: Outkast -- you can make that case pretty strongly with their last album, but they made their name playing hiphop. More importantly for purposes of this discussion, they don't present themselves as a rock act. Just look at the ridiculous-musician-acoutrements, which are probably the best way to classify acts by genre. Who's got the big-assed women, hydraulic cars and ill-considered jewelry purchases? Who's got the dirty hair, shiny guitars and sexually ambiguous outfits? okay, that last one was a bad example in this case. But my point stands: Outkast are a hip-hop act who play a lot of rock music. Maybe I'm being unfair -- it could be that no act that adopts a lot of the trappings contemporary hiphop music video culture would seem "rock" to me, regardless of what their music sounded like. But I at least don't think that's the case.
Outkast might now satisfy the same inoffensive rock spokesperson niche as LK, but they've only recently gotten there, and their huge success and professional scruples have likely priced them out of that role for many corporations who decide a non-white rock star is just what they need to promote their fall line/exciting new cola/trusted financial planning. I still think that void is why Lenny Kravitz was invented.
Be careful with labeling people's taste in music as "bad". YOU might not enjoy it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's "bad"...everyone has different tastes in music...that's what makes us all wonderful. :-)
Woohoo Bon Jovi. :-) I must admit that I love him more than Lenny.
I hate these ads. LK is mediocre, that's the best I can say about him. But SJP? As usual, it represents just what women need to see - a size ZERO woman strutting around with an "aren't I just too adorable to look at?" attitude. I thought we all decided that we were going to make fun of fedoras when Paula Abdul started wearing them jauntily. The ads are so affected, and I can't stand them.
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