Human beings tend to incline to conditions that make them feel comfortable and appreciated by other people. This is the reason why many people tend to live lives that they think will be acceptable and attractive to the other members of society. Few of them will do things that will make them look inferior or face a lot of opposition. They always want to do things that will make them more acknowledged and loved. The teenagers are the segment that is hardly hit by this inclination. They respond positively to this behaviour in all fields because they are always out to be perfect according to the opinion of others. They never want to be considered as being losers in any way. Due to this behaviour of inclining to things that are considered right within their peers, teenagers are incapable of living freely. The current society that they are living in influences them to do things that they may not be willing to do in that these things are not morally upright. Sherman Alexie in his book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight In Heaven clearly shows this by using a protagonist who is a teenager. In addition, the society that we are living in today takes advantage of this behaviour that is evident among teenagers. The film Merchant of Cool is a perfect example of how the corporate world takes advantage of this behaviour and uses it to make money. Teenagers cannot live freely anymore because they have become slaves of the corporate world.
Barak Goodman and Rachel Dretzin the directors of the film Merchant of Cool do a perfect job in displaying how the corporate world has been able to make teenagers incapable of living their lives freely. The corporate world has turned them to is slaves. This film reveals how the behaviour of wanting to be “cool” among teenagers has been turned by the corporate world into becoming a source of making “… a 150 billion dream” for the corporate world a year as the announcer suggests. According to the film, the business market is taking advantage of this urge of being “cool” to attract teenagers to purchase different products in the market. As Robert McChesney points out, the corporate world is using teenagers to “buy and sell cool.” The corporate world can achieve this by closely studying the “cool” behaviour among teenagers. The film terms this study as “cool hunting.” According to Viacom Disney, a business associate, “every time a company identifies a product as being cool, the product seizes to be cool and the company have to look for new alternatives.” He explains that ‘cool hunting ‘is a “puzzle that you cannot be able to solve permanently.” One has to keep on looking for new ideas. The corporate world can achieve this by using advertising messages across the media and online networks that specifically target teenagers. According to the film, the company knows what to advertise in the media through carrying out a lot of research among the teenagers and knowing what they like in terms of fashion, music and other tastes. One of the most remarkable scenes where the corporate world is shown to be conducting its research is where a couple of youngsters are paid 125 dollars to be able to answer a couple of questions that a certain company had. The announcer explains that Sirulnick companies have been able to learn that to make teenagers buy their products, they have to know what they like. The taste among many teenagers is what the announcer refers to as their language. He continues to affirm that failure to do so would cause many companies to lose terribly because teens do not respond to brands of products but just to “cool.” From this study company advertisers in the media have devised two kinds of teenagers: the “mook” and the “midriff”. The “mook” is used to represent the teenagers who are not ready to catch up with time by purchasing products that are currently in the market. They are viewed as being stupid and “uncivilized.” In the film, the commentator explains that the mook is “the Tom Green in Tom Green’s show, he is the diver that divers in water full of poo, he is the cartoon cutout in Howard stern”.On the other hand, the “midriff” is used to represent the teenagers that are ready to always make sure that they purchase the products that are currently in the market. According to the film, the midriff is the teenagers who would like to become stars like Britney Spears” who teaches young female teenagers that their body is an asset” The documentary displays this kind of teenager as being very attractive especially to the opposite sex. By doing this, the advertisements are not only able to reach the “minds and hearts of teenagers but also their wallets. A perfect example is a thirteen-year-old girl who is already applying a lot of make-up and participating in beauty and model contests. The ideas of Britney spears have manifested in her mind. She sings her son” I have done it again” as she combs her hair. The young girl is not even very sure of what she wants. When some marketing officials are interviewing her she just says that “she just wants to be successful” a clear indication that she is there just because of influence. However, the commentator explains that no matter her age, she has been able to know how” to act and speak like a midriff as she does during the contest. This influence has caused teenagers to always want to use money. One market official explains that teenagers have money. They just want to spend it. Teens use “more than 100 billion a year to run the current economy. Parents have just been forced to give teens money to keep them at home. Some other parents give them what the commentator refers to as “guilt money” so that to signify that “ I can’t spend time with you but I can spend money with you.”
In addition, the film also shows how the media especially TV stations have influenced young adults to believe that sex and looking violent be characters of “being cool” Merchants of Cool shows how television stations like MTV can take advantage of the violent behaviour that is exhibited by many teenagers. It translates this violent behaviour into a source of profit for the corporate world. Television stations use sexual pop stars like Britney Spears who is popular among teenagers. This technique makes young adults attracted to the products in that they are in line with what they want to hear and see. It is what a corporate marketer named Dave Sirulnick terms as the “language of the teen’s territory.” The corporate world is not concerned with the morality of teenagers in that it does not view them as a fundamental segment of the society that needs to be protected but rather sees them as customers. There is a scene in the film that focuses on an advert on MTV. This advert, shows a man “midriff” holding a microphone and a lady caressing his butt. The advertisement is out to market the pant that he is wearing and also create a notion among youngsters of what it means to be sexy.
The film also reveals the power of peer influence and how has a widespread effect among teenagers. Some hire teenagers and use them to influence their friends. Companies make sure that the teenagers are trendsetters to their friends. These teenagers are assigned contracts that are worth a lot of money. All teenagers need to do is to always make sure that they put on clothes that advertise products by a given company; they also have to make sure that their friends listen to commercials that advertise specific products by specific companies. If this influence on their friends is not enough they can just talk about the products from specific companies to their friends. This will cause their friends to have a lot of anxiety about wanting to try the products to be just like their friends in that they want to be like the trendsetters within the group of friends. Jessica Biel is a perfect example within the film. She gains a lot of privileges from the companies that hire her. Though marketers explain that it is hard to be able to get a teen that is a trendsetter within a particular group of teenagers, it is clear that when they get one they generate a lot of income from that particular group.
The film closes with a scene of professional wrestling. The commentator explains that many teenagers like to identify themselves with incidences that there is violence. He terms this violence as “the pop.” A couple of teenagers try to define it and they say that it is the “feeling of feeling wow!” They believe that pop is a quality of being “cool” and that is why they want to identify with it. According to the commentator, many companies know that “where there is a pop there is money.” This is the reason they there the best that they attract to such scenes. As I sum up on the film, one of the companies that are benefiting from teenagers is Sprite. Sprite has made great use of trendsetters. It is used to give trendsetters money to throw parties and make sure that the teenagers present use Sprite. It also uses radio DJ s to “ smuggle there message to kids.” according to the commentator Sprite and Hip hop have become the same thing. So far, Sprite is the fastest-selling soft drink in the world due to its ability to utilize trendsetters. Closely connected to the message that is in the film, Sherman Alexie tries to focus on peer influence among teenagers in the Native American society and how it has made them incapable of living their lives freely.
Sherman Alexie in his book, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, uses Victor, a teenager, as the protagonist. Victor is brought up in a society where many teens were beginning to take up the culture of alcoholism from their elders. At the beginning of the book, there is a party that is held in Victor’s house. All the people in the party take alcohol until some of them including his parents pass out. Others become violent and “throw each other across stairwells” (Alexie 9). Victor being a young boy at this time sees all that is happening and he is not pleased by the effects of alcohol that he sees. He develops a love-hate relationship with alcoholism. Victor can see that the effects of alcohol are not pleasing at all. His father is always drunk and keep quarrelling with his mother because of his drinking behaviour. Alcoholism has led his parents to divorce when he is still very young and his father goes to live in Phoenix alone afterwards. Irrespective of Victor having an inner conscience that was receptive to alcoholism, he is not able to avoid it. Victor begins to walk with friends like Adrian who influence him to take alcohol. Initially, Victor is hesitant; he does not want to take alcohol which he knows is not right. He has seen its effects since young but he cannot keep up with the peer pressure from his friend. Thomas Builds-the-fire, one of Victor’s friends, has a great talent for telling stories and every time he takes alcohol he becomes more creative and he would be in a position to make incredible stories even from a very simple occurrence. Victor admires him. Like the teenagers in Merchant of Cool Victor wants to be as “cool” as his friends. Within no time, Victor develops a beer belly which he is very ashamed of. It makes him feel very unattractive. He even wears long shirts during the excess summer heat to” hide his beer belly” (Alexie 34). Furthermore, he can no longer play basketball since he has now become very physically unfit due to his indulgence in alcoholism. Victor cannot be in a position to live freely. He has to rely on the advice of his friends who motivate him to continue taking alcohol yet he can see the negative effects of alcohol that are happening to him. Just like the teenagers in Merchant of Cool he spends a lot of money on alcohol.
Victor continues to struggle between his conscience that urges him to stop taking alcohol and the pressure of his friends. Unlike the Merchant of Cool where teenagers do not have a solution to the problem of consumerism, Victor finally comes back to his conscience and decides to quit drinking. His friends do not understand it. They ridicule him and often tempt him to have a drink. When he quits drinking alcohol, he becomes his real self. He feels at peace with his conscience. He can live freely without relying on the advice of his friends who had made a “small cave” for him by making him act according to their school of thought and not follow his conscience.
In conclusion, It is clear from the two texts, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight In Heaven and the film Merchant of the Cool, that human beings will always do things that will make them more appreciated by others. They will always strive to do things that appease others. This is the reason they keep on suffering as they continue to achieve this. The idea is clearly shown in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight In Heaven where the protagonist has to fight with his conscience and also in the film, Merchant of the Cool, where teenagers have to fight with consumerism which is a major threat to the American population which has “…generally been affected at all levels” of society(Schor 6). However, when they finally decide to live their lives freely without the influence of others, they become at peace with their conscience. The only remedy to all these problems is people making up their minds to live their lives and not the lives of their trendsetters.
Works Cited
Alexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger And Tonto Fistfight In Heaven. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. Print.
Goodman, Barak, and Rachel Dretzin, dirs. The Merchants of Cool. PBS, 2001. Film.
Schor, Juliet, B. The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don’t Need. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1999. Print.