I have a little bit of apologizing to do. As you probably didn't notice, "Blight" took a short hiatus at the beginning of this semester, and it was entirely my fault. I'll get to the explanation of my week-long early retirement by the end of this column. For now, just consider it sort of like what happens to "Scrubs" every season except instead of having my spot taken by back-to-back-to-back episodes of "The Apprentice," I got replaced by a blurry ad for Domino's.
Two Fridays ago at two o'clock, I had stopped into the local Goodwill to buy a $5 VCR on which I would tape the finale of "Arrested Development." Aside from finding a gloriously inexpensive alternative to Tivo, that Friday was totally unremarkable. It would have remained unremarkable had not at that very moment a bunch of Daily staffers and columnists gathered in Eaton 201 to determine which columns would run for the semester.
Was it a conspiracy? Perhaps the Source had learned that I drive a Volvo and listen to NPR and had convinced the Daily that their columnists weren't fair and balanced enough. More likely, I had missed the advertisements on TuftsLife and in the Daily telling columnists they had to reapply, and had been unceremoniously axed.
After my departure, I tried to figure out how I could somehow keep sharing my ideas in print.
The Observer announced they had an opening for someone who wasn't afraid to review "Brokeback Mountain." There was also talk of adding me as a sidebar to Jill Harrison's column, but I'd talk about on-campus social life. It'd be called "The Stationary Lush" and I'd write about what it's like to sit in a dorm room with the lights off and silently consume Jenkins until my liver bleeds.
I turned both opportunities down. I don't have the attention span to sit through anything longer than a half-hour sitcom, and I much prefer a gin and tonic at the Ritz Bar to Kappy's Own in Miller Hall.
This Monday I got a call from the editor-in-chief telling me that a columnist had dropped out and that I was up for the open spot. Now I'm back, and I'm more excited than a TUPD officer who just found out he's working the Naked Quad Run detail.
If there's anything I've taken from this experience, it's that hit-you-over-the-head "advertising" of all forms is on its way out. I read the Daily, but somehow I managed to miss an ad that offered me a chance to do something I was really interested in.
For businesses that are advertising their products, the solution has been a paradigm shift from commercial interruptions to product placement: a Desperate Housewife as a Buick spokesmodel, or a columnist who writes about how much he loves his iMac, for example.
If advertising is dead, what then of social marketing - the advertising of positive behavior change?
Traditional social marketing relied on the didactic entertainment of after school specials, anti-drug ads or '60s television shows which zoomed in on characters buckling their seatbelts.
Movies such as "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "The Passion of the Christ" - while entertaining to their target audiences - both seem to fit into this category.
More effective than advertising is art and entertainment that does not divorce itself from relevant cultural forces, yet also does not seek to teach a lesson.
To use two wildly different examples mentioned within this column, both "Brokeback Mountain" and "Arrested Development" did not remove themselves from potentially divisive social and political issues, but they also empowered the viewers to make their own decisions about those controversial issues.
I am a firm believer that the best way of introducing a controversial or unfamiliar idea is merely broaching the subject and starting up a dialogue, and jumpstarting the process of individuals coming to their own conclusions.
Even something as extreme as the Danish cartoons (and I would have to fall on the side of saying that they were tasteless and unwise) at the very least share a quality with many other tasteless and unwise expressions in human history: They transcended scholarly journal articles and political rhetoric and certainly got a lot of people voicing their own opinions.
That's a lot of the reason I'm glad to be back. I know that a lot of thought and a lot of action can come from what seems like mere entertainment - and I hope that a lot of people more entertaining than myself aren't afraid to express themselves. Write a Viewpoint, or apply for a column next year. Consider this an advertisement.
And if anyone wants to buy a slightly used VCR for $10, just let me know.
