Is Jay Leno a Corporate Shill?
Written by Edward ChampionPosted on September 28, 2009
Filed Under Advertising, Television
You’d think that with a whopping 20 minutes carved out of an hour for commercials, the actual television program itself would be devoid of commercials, right? Not so. Jay Leno has a considerable preoccupation with naming products on his show (and, in the video above, interviewing the Wendy’s girl). The above video, featuring moments only from the September 25, 2009 episode of The Jay Leno Show, features blatant references to Cialis, Walmart, Photoshop, Waffle House, numerous tire companies, Wendy’s, and Microsoft’s Bing, calling into question the notion that The Jay Leno Show is an entertainment program. With all of these mentions, you’d think that Jay Leno was running a glorified infomercial.
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Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
Contact Ed by email.
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Brooklyn, NY 11217
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That was exhausting and nauseating. The answer is Yes.
Yeah, he’s been at it for a long while. Remember Bill Hicks’ bit on Jay Leno being a corporate shill. That was in ‘92. BTW, “corporate shill,” were Hicks’ exact words. “You do a commercial, you’re off the artistic fuckin’ role call.” I believe it first started with Jay when he did a Doritos commercial in the early 90s.
This is all very naive. The stars of TV shows often appeared in the commercials for their sponsors’ products that were aired with the program. I once saw an ad with Bewitched stars Dick York and Elizabeth Montgomery, in character, sitting at their breakfast table.
Radio shows and, in the early days of TV, TV shows were directed by advertising account executives from the sponsor’s ad agencies. Product placements are inserted in TV shows and movies routinely.
Anyway, since when did Leno become an artist? He’s a performer. TV and movies are inherently commercial media, produced by corporations to serve corporate interests.
Leno complies or he’s out of a job.
Bill Hicks on Big Media and Economy – Click here for this week’s top video clips
A lot of comics consider themselves artists. Sure, they entertain, but you say that like it’s a bad thing. Isaac Bashevis Singer said, of books, that their function, first and foremost, is to entertain.
I don’t think you are quite getting the point. These shows _are_ “glorified infomercial” in that they are there to promote various things. The two biggest “products” in that episode you left out were the FOX TV show “House” and Lionsgate film “More Than a Game.”
Very rarely is there a guest on one of these talkshows that is not there to “plug” some product they are selling.
In creating the 10 p.m. show for Jay Leno, NBC made a big deal of its plans to use live promotions to help advertisers sidestep the practice of Tivo’d commercials. It is more prevalent in the new show, by design.
[...] David Letterman isn’t as prolific as Jay Leno with his product placement, Letterman does shower his opening monologues with products. [...]
In other news, water found to be wet.
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