Marketing Morality

My friend Travis and I like to make fun of commercials. Not in the sense of laughing at beer-advertising frogs or car-insuring geckos. No, that would be too normal, and theology students are far from normal.

We sat around one day and thought of all the stupid slogans we had seen.

Wendy's - "Do what tastes right."

Seriously, could Wendy's be to blame for the downfall of American morality? I mean, we know from good Catholic moral theology the common phrase agere sequitur esse ("action follows being") meaning that who we are should determine what we do. What if our tastes determined what we did? Let's use the broad definition here: taste can mean any general inclination toward something. It makes sense. That perhaps explains why some women will murder other women in department stores because the tasteful dress one woman desires permits her morally (so she may think) to beat to death anyone else looking at it. Perhaps this explains why so many people steal cars because they look good. Heck, even taking the narrow definition of taste, perhaps this is the reason Eve ate the apple.

Nike - "Just do it."

Really, though, this one is far worse. Don't think about it. Don't decide. Just do it. If there was ever a more animalistic approach to morality, I don't know what it is. To tell someone to "just do it" seems to imply that natural inclinations - instincts - are entirely capable in themselves of creating a civilized soceity. This coming in a world where everyone is told to follow their animal instincts: fornicate, rape, steal, murder, whatever keeps you alive, whatever keeps you "pleasured."

Now before people start shooting off at me, I realize that these companies aren't meaning to set moral standards with their slogans. I just find it amusing because, hey, I'm a nerd like that.

What's far more upsetting is ABC Family Channel's slogan: "a new kind of family." This new kind of family, which they perhaps are trying to reconstruct in the image of their television line-up, is something only the media could dream up. I was watching Kyle XY yesterday during their marathon. I'd never seen the show before, but it looked intriguing, so I thought I'd give it a shot. In the first episode, within a very short period of time, there was a situation which was clearly meant to indicate teenage fornication, a co-ed sleepover of two, and lying to parents to get the once naked boy out of the house through a window. Shortly after, a young teenager (possibly a pre-teen) was shown running in to the bathroom, pulling down his pants, taking out a pornographic magazine, and sitting down on the toilet. The implication was clear and disturbing. A few of the other episodes indicated that the real purpose for going to the pool should be "babe scoping," that lying was sometimes okay if it was for a good reason, and that part of the goal of summer vacation is to lose your virginity. In short, the series was disturbing. Kids do not need to be exposed to this "new kind of family" on ABC Family Channel. The show had a TV-14 rating, but the fact is that nobody should be led to think that trying to lose your virginity is a step to adulthood. Adulthood should come before losing virginity. No one should be led to believe that masturbation is normal or morally permitted. It's an abuse of God's gift of sexuality, which is only fulfilled in being a gift to another.

The whole situation is startling. Whether this is their goal or not, I do not know, but one thing is certain: there is a new kind of family emerging, and it is no family at all.

God bless,

Micah