Cultural Event number Two

On Monday March 19, 2012 I went to see Morgan Spurlock Speak in the Schwab Auditorium. I remembered watching his movie  "Supersize Me" in high school and enjoying it so thought it would be great to see him speak in person. I got to the auditorium and expected to hear all about fast food in our society and McDonalds and everything in the movie but was pleasantly surprised when the talk was about something different.

I very obviously did not do my homework for the event when Morgan Spurlock began to talk about his new movie.  I heard about supersize me and his show "thirty days" (which is a very similar idea to "supersize me" where Spurlock does something for thirty days to try to get people to gain a new perspective on certain lifestyles and social issues) and I thought that these types of project were all that he did. Instead, Spurlock talked about his new movie "The Greatest Movie Ever Sold". The movie is about branding and product placement in movies that was funding 100% by product placement.

I was shocked when Spurlock talked about advertising in certain schools. He talked about walking down the hall of a grade school that seemed like talking around the outfield of a baseball field. Many schools have had extreme budget cuts so have resorted to advertising as their only way on income to keep certain academic and arts programs.  He brought up a many good questions about advertising to children. Are children unable to sort through the mush of advertising to find the truth? Is product placement in children s movies okay? and if so, how about advertising in schools? Are we not allowing these young students to think for themselves?

The most interesting part of the night was learning about how integrated product placement is in movie making. Getting sponsors, pitching to sponsors, talking up their products, advertising your movie in stores, all of these are things I have overlooked. We are surrounded by thousands of brands and products a day that I seem to overlook them. Every stadium, movie, team, and event seems to have a sponsor. The talk made me look at movies and advertisements differently  and made me more aware of just how inundated with brands we truly are.