Part 5 (1/2)

Chapter Eight.

Corporate Censors.h.i.+p Barricading the Branded Village Every other week I pull something off the shelf that I don't think is of Wal-Mart quality.

-Teresa Stanton, manager of Wal-Mart's store in Cheraw, South Carolina, on the chain's practice of censoring magazines with provocative covers, in The Wall Street Journal The Wall Street Journal, October 22, 1997 In some instances, the a.s.sault on choice has moved beyond predatory retail and monopolistic synergy schemes and become what can only be described as straightforward censors.h.i.+p: the active elimination and suppression of material. Most of us would define censors.h.i.+p as a restriction of content imposed by governments or other state inst.i.tutions, or instigated-particularly in North American societies-by pressure groups for political or religious reasons. It is rapidly becoming evident, however, that this definition is drastically outdated. Although there will always be a Jesse Helms and a Church Lady to ban a Marilyn Manson concert, these little dramas are fast becoming sideshows in the context of larger threats to free expression.

Corporate censors.h.i.+p has everything to do with the themes of the last two chapters: media and retail companies have inflated to such bloated proportions that simple decisions about what items to stock in a store or what kind of cultural product to commission-decisions quite properly left to the discretion of business owners and culture makers-now have enormous consequences: those who make these choices have the power to reengineer the cultural landscape. When magazines are pulled from Wal-Mart's shelves by store managers, when cover art is changed on CDs to make them Kmart-friendly, or when movies are refused by Blockbuster Video because they don't conform to the chain's ”family entertainment” image, these private decisions send waves through the culture industries, affecting not just what is readily available at the local big box but what gets produced in the first place.

Both Wal-Mart and Blockbuster Video have their roots in the southern U.S. Christian heartland-Blockbuster in Texas, Wal-Mart in Arkansas. Both retailers believe that being ”family” stores is at the core of their financial success, the very key to their ma.s.s appeal. The model (also adopted by Kmart), is to create a one-size-fits-all family-entertainment center, where Mom and Dad can rent the latest box-office hit and the new Garth Brooks release a few steps away from where Johnny can get Tomb Raider 2 Tomb Raider 2 and Melissa can co-angst with Alanis. and Melissa can co-angst with Alanis.

To protect this formula, Blockbuster, Wal-Mart, Kmart and all the large supermarket chains have a policy of refusing to carry any material that could threaten their image as a retail destination for the whole family. The one-stop-shopping recipe is simply too lucrative to risk. So magazines are rejected by Wal-Marts and supermarket chains-which together account for 55 percent of U.S. newsstand sales-for offenses ranging from too much skin on the cover girls, to articles on ”His & Her o.r.g.a.s.ms” or ”Coming Out: Why I Had to Leave My Husband for Another Woman.”1 Wal-Mart's and Kmart's policy is not to stock CDs with cover art or lyrics deemed overly s.e.xual or touching too explicitly on topics that reliably scandalize the heartland: abortion, h.o.m.os.e.xuality and satanism. Meanwhile, Blockbuster Video, which controls 25 percent of the home-video market in the U.S., carries plenty of violent and s.e.xually explicit movies but it draws the line at films that receive an NC-17 rating, a U.S. designation meaning that n.o.body under seventeen can see the film, even accompanied by an adult. Wal-Mart's and Kmart's policy is not to stock CDs with cover art or lyrics deemed overly s.e.xual or touching too explicitly on topics that reliably scandalize the heartland: abortion, h.o.m.os.e.xuality and satanism. Meanwhile, Blockbuster Video, which controls 25 percent of the home-video market in the U.S., carries plenty of violent and s.e.xually explicit movies but it draws the line at films that receive an NC-17 rating, a U.S. designation meaning that n.o.body under seventeen can see the film, even accompanied by an adult.

To hear the chains tell it, censoring art is simply one of several services they provide to their family-oriented customers, like smiling faces and low prices. ”Our customers understand our music and video merchandising decisions are a common-sense attempt to provide the type of material they might want to purchase,” says Dale Ingram, Wal-Mart director of corporate relations. Blockbuster's line is: ”We respect the needs of families as well as individuals.”2 Wal-Mart can afford to be particularly zealous since entertainment products represent only a fraction of its business anyway. No one hit record or movie has the power to make a dent in Wal-Mart's bottom line, a fact that makes the retailer unafraid to stand up to the entertainment industry's best-selling artists and defend its vision of a shopping environment where power tools and hip-hop alb.u.ms are sold in adjoining aisles. The most well known of these cases involved the chain's refusal to carry Nirvana's second hit alb.u.m, In Utero In Utero, even though the band's previous alb.u.m had gone quadruple platinum, because it objected to the back-cover artwork portraying fetuses. ”Country artists like Vince Gill and Garth Brooks are going to sell much better for Wal-Mart than Nirvana,” Wal-Mart spokesperson Trey Baker blithely said at the time.3 Facing a projected loss of 10 percent (Wal-Mart's then share of U.S. music sales), Warner and Nirvana backed down and changed the artwork. They also changed the t.i.tle of the song ”Rape Me” to ”Waif Me.” Kmart Canada took a similar att.i.tude to the Prodigy's 1997 release Facing a projected loss of 10 percent (Wal-Mart's then share of U.S. music sales), Warner and Nirvana backed down and changed the artwork. They also changed the t.i.tle of the song ”Rape Me” to ”Waif Me.” Kmart Canada took a similar att.i.tude to the Prodigy's 1997 release Fat of the Land Fat of the Land, on the basis that the cover art and the lyrics in the songs ”Smack My b.i.t.c.h Up” and ”Funky s.h.i.+t” just wouldn't fit in at the Mart. ”Our typical customer is a married working mother and we felt it was inappropriate for a family store,” said manager Allen Letch.4 Like Nirvana, the British bad boys complied with their label's subsequent request and issued a cleaned-up version. Like Nirvana, the British bad boys complied with their label's subsequent request and issued a cleaned-up version.

Such censors.h.i.+p, in fact, has become so embedded in the production process that it is often treated as simply another stage of editing. Because of Blockbuster's policy, some major film studios have altogether stopped making films that will be rated NC-17. If a rare exception is made, the studios will cut two versions-one for the theaters, one sliced and diced for Blockbuster. What producer, after all, would be willing to forgo 25 percent of video earnings before their project is even out of the gate? As film director David Cronenberg told The New Yorker The New Yorker, ”The a.s.sumption now seems to be that every movie should be watchable by a kid.... So the pressure on anyone who wants to make a grownup movie is enormous.”5 Many magazines, including Cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan and and Vibe Vibe, have taken to showing advance copies of new issues to big boxes and supermarkets before they s.h.i.+p them out. Why risk having to deal with the returns if the issue is deemed too risque? ”If you don't let them know in advance, they will delist the t.i.tle and never carry it again,” explains Dana Sacher, circulation director of Vibe Vibe. ”This way, they don't carry one issue, but they might carry the next one.”6 Since bands put out a record every couple of years-not one a month-they don't have the luxury of warning Wal-Mart about a potentially contentious cover and hoping for better luck on the next release. Like film producers, record labels are instead acting preemptively, issuing two versions of the same alb.u.m-one for the big boxes, bleeped, airbrushed, even missing entire songs. But while that has been the strategy for multi-platinum-selling artists like the Prodigy and Nirvana, bands with less clout often lose the opportunity to record their songs the way they intended, preempting the objections of family-values retailers by issuing only pre-sanitized versions of their work.

In large part, the complacency surrounding the Wal-Mart and Blockbuster strain of censors.h.i.+p occurs because most people are apt to think of corporate decisions as non-ideological. Businesses make business decisions, we tell ourselves-even when the effects of those decisions are clearly political. And when retailers dominate the market to the extent that these chains do today, their actions can't help raising questions about the effect on civil liberties and public life. As Bob Merlis, a spokesperson for Warner Brothers Records explains, these private decisions can indeed have very public effects. ”If you can't buy the record then we can't sell it,” he says. ”And there are some places where these ma.s.s merchandisers are the only game in town.”7 So in much the same way that Wal-Mart has used its size to get cheaper prices out of suppliers, the chain is also using its heft to change the kind of art that its ”suppliers” (i.e., record companies, publishers, magazine editors) provide. So in much the same way that Wal-Mart has used its size to get cheaper prices out of suppliers, the chain is also using its heft to change the kind of art that its ”suppliers” (i.e., record companies, publishers, magazine editors) provide.

Censors.h.i.+p in Synergy While the instances of corporate censors.h.i.+p discussed so far have been a direct by-product of retail concentration, they represent only the most ham-fisted form of corporate censors.h.i.+p. More subtly-and perhaps more interestingly-the culture industry's wave of mergers is breeding its own blockages to free expression, a kind of censors.h.i.+p in synergy.

One of the reasons that producers are not standing up to puritanical retailers is that those retailers, distributors and producers are often owned, in whole or in part, by the same companies. Nowhere is this conflict of interest more in play than in the relations.h.i.+p between Paramount Films and Blockbuster Video. Paramount is hardly positioned to lead the charge against Blockbuster's conservative stocking policy, because if indeed such a policy is the most cost-effective way to draw the whole family into the video store, then who is Paramount to take money directly out of mutual owner Viacom's pockets? Similar conflicts arise in the aftermath of Disney's 1993 purchase of Miramax, the formerly independent film company. On the one hand, Miramax now has deep resources to throw behind commercially risky foreign films like Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful Life Is Beautiful; on the other, when the company decides whether or not to carry a politically controversial and s.e.xually explicit work like Larry Clarke's Kids Kids, it cannot avoid weighing how that decision will reflect on Disney and ABC's reputations as family programmers, with all the bowing to pressure groups that that entails.

Such potential conflicts become even more disturbing when the media holdings involved are not only producing entertainment but also news or current affairs. When newspapers, magazines, books and television stations are but one arm of a conglomerate bent on ”absolute open communication” (as Sumner Redstone puts it), there is obvious potential for the conglomerate's myriad financial interests to influence the kind of journalism that is produced. Of course, newspaper publishers meddling in editorial content to further their own financial interests is as old a story as the small-town paper owner who uses the local Herald Herald or or Gazette Gazette to get his buddy elected mayor. But when the publisher is a conglomerate, its fingers are in many more pots at once. As multinational conglomerates build up their self-enclosed, self-promoting worlds, they create new and varied possibilities for conflict of interest and censors.h.i.+p. Such pressures range from pus.h.i.+ng the magazine arm of the conglomerate to give a favorable review to a movie or sitcom produced by another arm of the conglomerate, to pus.h.i.+ng an editor not to run a critical story that could hurt a merger in the works, to newspapers being asked to tiptoe around judicial or regulatory bodies that award television licenses and review anti-trust complaints. And what is emerging is that even tough-minded editors and producers who unquestioningly stand up to external calls for censors.h.i.+p-whether from vocal political lobbies, Wal-Mart managers or their own advertisers-are finding these intracorporate pressures much more difficult to resist. to get his buddy elected mayor. But when the publisher is a conglomerate, its fingers are in many more pots at once. As multinational conglomerates build up their self-enclosed, self-promoting worlds, they create new and varied possibilities for conflict of interest and censors.h.i.+p. Such pressures range from pus.h.i.+ng the magazine arm of the conglomerate to give a favorable review to a movie or sitcom produced by another arm of the conglomerate, to pus.h.i.+ng an editor not to run a critical story that could hurt a merger in the works, to newspapers being asked to tiptoe around judicial or regulatory bodies that award television licenses and review anti-trust complaints. And what is emerging is that even tough-minded editors and producers who unquestioningly stand up to external calls for censors.h.i.+p-whether from vocal political lobbies, Wal-Mart managers or their own advertisers-are finding these intracorporate pressures much more difficult to resist.

The most publicized of the synergy-censors.h.i.+p cases occurred in September 1998 when ABC News killed a Disney-related story prepared by its award-winning investigative team of correspondent Brian Ross and producer Rhonda Schwartz. The story began as a broad investigation of allegations of lax security at theme parks and resorts, leading to the inadvertent hiring of s.e.x offenders, including pedophiles, as park employees.

Because Disney was to be only one of several park owners under the microscope, Ross and Schwartz got the go-ahead on the story. After all, it wasn't the first time the team had faced the prospect of reporting on their parent company. In March 1998, ABC newsmagazine 20/20 20/20 had aired their story about widespread sweatshop labor in the U.S. territory of Saipan. Though it focused its criticism on Ralph Lauren and the Gap, the story did mention in pa.s.sing that Disney was among the other American companies contracting to the offending factories. had aired their story about widespread sweatshop labor in the U.S. territory of Saipan. Though it focused its criticism on Ralph Lauren and the Gap, the story did mention in pa.s.sing that Disney was among the other American companies contracting to the offending factories.

But reporting has a life of its own and as Ross and Schwartz progressed on the theme-park investigation, they found that Disney wasn't on the periphery, but was at the center of this story. When they handed in two drafts of what had turned into a s.e.x-and-scandal expose of Disney World, David Westin, president of ABC News, rejected the drafts. ”They didn't work,” said network spokeswoman Eileen Murphy.8 Even though Disney denies the allegations of lax security, first made in the book Disney: Even though Disney denies the allegations of lax security, first made in the book Disney: The Mouse Betrayed The Mouse Betrayed, and even though CEO Michael Eisner is on record saying ”I would prefer ABC not cover Disney,”9 ABC denies the story was killed because of pressure from its parent company. Murphy did say, however, that ”we would generally not embark on an investigation that focused solely on Disney, for a whole variety of reasons, one of which is that whatever you come up with, positive or negative, will seem suspect.” ABC denies the story was killed because of pressure from its parent company. Murphy did say, however, that ”we would generally not embark on an investigation that focused solely on Disney, for a whole variety of reasons, one of which is that whatever you come up with, positive or negative, will seem suspect.”10 The most vocal criticism of the affair came from Brill's Content Brill's Content, the media-watch magazine founded in 1998 by Steven Brill. The publication lambasted ABC executives and journalists for their silence in the face of censors.h.i.+p, accusing them of caving in to their own internalized ”Mouse-Ke-Fear.” In his previous incarnation as founder of the Court TV cable network and American Lawyer American Lawyer magazine, Steven Brill had some firsthand experience with censors.h.i.+p in synergy. After selling his miniature media empire to Time Warner in 1997, Brill claims that he faced pressure on several different stories that brushed up against the octopus-like tentacles of the Time Warner/Turner media empire. In a memo excerpted in magazine, Steven Brill had some firsthand experience with censors.h.i.+p in synergy. After selling his miniature media empire to Time Warner in 1997, Brill claims that he faced pressure on several different stories that brushed up against the octopus-like tentacles of the Time Warner/Turner media empire. In a memo excerpted in Vanity Fair Vanity Fair, Brill writes that company lawyers tried to suppress a report in American Lawyer American Lawyer about a Church of Scientology lawsuit against about a Church of Scientology lawsuit against Time Time magazine (owned by Time Warner) and asked Court TV to refrain from covering a trial involving Warner Music. He also claims to have received a request from Time Warner's chief financial officer, Richard Bressler, to ”kill a story” about William Baer, the director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Compet.i.tion-ironically, the very body charged with reviewing the Time Warner-Turner merger for any violation of anti-trust law.” magazine (owned by Time Warner) and asked Court TV to refrain from covering a trial involving Warner Music. He also claims to have received a request from Time Warner's chief financial officer, Richard Bressler, to ”kill a story” about William Baer, the director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Compet.i.tion-ironically, the very body charged with reviewing the Time Warner-Turner merger for any violation of anti-trust law.”11 Despite the alleged meddling, all the stories in question made it to print or to air, but Brill's experience still casts a shadow over the future of press freedom inside the merged giants. Individual crusading editors and producers have always carried the flag for journalists' right to do their job, but in the present climate, for every crusader there will be many more walking on eggs for fear of losing their job. And it's not surprising that some have begun to see trouble everywhere, second-guessing the wishes of top executives in ways more creative and paranoid than the executives may even dare to imagine themselves. This is the truly insidious nature of self-censors.h.i.+p: it does the gag work more efficiently than an army of bullying and meddling media moguls could ever hope to accomplish.

China Chill As we have seen in recent years, journalists, producers and editors are not only finding reason to walk carefully when dealing with judicial and regulatory bodies (not to mention theme parks), but-in the case of China-we have watched an entire country become a tiptoe zone. A wave of China-chill incidents has swept through the Western media and entertainment industries since Deng Xiaoping tentatively lifted the Communist Party monopoly on news and began slowly to open his country's borders to some censor-approved foreign media and entertainment.

Now the global culture industry faces the possibility that it is the West that may have to play by China's rules-outside as well as inside its borders. Those rules were neatly summed up in a 1992 article in The South China Morning Post The South China Morning Post: ”Provided they do not break the law or go against party line, journalists and cultural personnel are guaranteed freedom from interference by commissars and censors.”12 And with 100 million cable subscribers expected in China by the year 2000, several cultural empire builders have already begun exercising their freedom to agree with the Chinese government. And with 100 million cable subscribers expected in China by the year 2000, several cultural empire builders have already begun exercising their freedom to agree with the Chinese government.

An early incident involved Rupert Murdoch's notorious decision to drop the BBC's World Service news from the Asian version of Star TV. Chinese authorities had objected to a BBC broadcast on Mao Tse-tung, sending a clear warning about the types of reporting that will be welcome and profitable in China's wired world. More recently, HarperCollins Publishers (this book's publisher in the United Kingdom), also owned by Murdoch's News Corp, decided to drop East and West: China, Power, and the Future of Asia East and West: China, Power, and the Future of Asia, written by Hong Kong's last British governor, Chris Patten. At issue was the possibility that the views expressed by Patten-who had called for more democracy in Hong Kong and criticized human-rights abuses in China-would enrage the Chinese government upon which Murdoch's satellite ventures are dependent. In the storm of controversy that followed, more allegations of censors.h.i.+p for the sake of global synergy came out of the woodwork, including one by Jonathan Mirsky, former East Asia editor for the Murdoch-owned London Times Times. He claimed that the paper ”has simply decided, because of Murdoch's interests, not to cover China in a serious way.”13 Fears of retaliation from the Chinese are not without basis. Famous for punis.h.i.+ng media organizations that don't toe the government line and rewarding those that do, the Chinese government banned the sale and owners.h.i.+p of private satellite dishes in October 1993: the dishes were picking up more than ten foreign stations, including CNN, BBC and MTV. Liu Xilian, vice minister for radio, film and television, would only say, ”Some of the satellite programs are suitable and some are not suitable for the normal public.”14 The Chinese government fired another salvo in December 1996 after learning of Disney's plans to release The Chinese government fired another salvo in December 1996 after learning of Disney's plans to release Kundun Kundun, a Martin Scorsese film about Tibet's Dalai Lama. ”We are resolutely opposed to the making of this movie. It is intended to glorify the Dalai Lama, so it is an interference in China's internal affairs,” stated Kong Min, an official at the Ministry of Radio, Film and Television.15 When the studio went ahead with the film anyway, Beijing inst.i.tuted a ban on the release of all Disney films in China, a ban that stayed in place for two years. When the studio went ahead with the film anyway, Beijing inst.i.tuted a ban on the release of all Disney films in China, a ban that stayed in place for two years.

Since China only lets in ten foreign films a year and puts controls on their distribution, the Kundun Kundun incident sent a chill through the film industry, which had several other China-related projects in the works, including MGM's incident sent a chill through the film industry, which had several other China-related projects in the works, including MGM's Red Corner Red Corner and Sony's and Sony's Seven Years in Tibet Seven Years in Tibet. To their credit, none of the studios pulled the plug on these films in progress, and in fact many in the film community rallied around Scorsese and Kundun Kundun. However, both MGM and Sony made official statements that attempted to depoliticize their China films, even if it meant contradicting their lead actors and directors. MGM went ahead with Red Corner, a movie about China's corrupt criminal justice system, starring Richard Gere, but while Gere maintained that the film is ”a different angle of dealing with Tibet,”16 MGM's worldwide marketing president, Gerry Rich, told a different story: ”We're not pursuing a political agenda. We're in the business of selling entertainment.” MGM's worldwide marketing president, Gerry Rich, told a different story: ”We're not pursuing a political agenda. We're in the business of selling entertainment.” Seven Years in Tibet Seven Years in Tibet got a similar sell from Sony: ”You don't want to convey that it's a movie about a political cause,” a studio executive said. got a similar sell from Sony: ”You don't want to convey that it's a movie about a political cause,” a studio executive said.17 Disney, meanwhile, finally managed to get the Chinese government to lift the ban on its films with the release of a Disney, meanwhile, finally managed to get the Chinese government to lift the ban on its films with the release of a Mulan Mulan, feel-good animated tale based on a 1,300-year-old legend from the Sui Dynasty. The South China Morning Post The South China Morning Post described the depiction of Chinese heroism and patriotism as an ”olive branch” and ”the most China-friendly movie Hollywood has made in years.” It also served its purpose: described the depiction of Chinese heroism and patriotism as an ”olive branch” and ”the most China-friendly movie Hollywood has made in years.” It also served its purpose: Mulan Mulan flopped at the box office but it opened the door to discussions between Disney and Beijing for a planned $2 billion Disney theme park in Hong Kong. flopped at the box office but it opened the door to discussions between Disney and Beijing for a planned $2 billion Disney theme park in Hong Kong.

The medium will change from a ma.s.s-produced and ma.s.s-consumed commodity to an endless feast of niches and specialties.... A new age of individualism is coming and it will bring an eruption of culture unprecedented in human history.-George Gilder, Life After Television Life After Television, 1990 If anything, the Western l.u.s.t for access to the Chinese entertainment market has only become more intense in recent years, despite worsening relations.h.i.+ps between the U.S. and Chinese governments over such issues as access to China's securities and telecommunications industries, more revelations of espionage and, most disastrous of all, the accidental bombing of the Chinese emba.s.sy in Belgrade during the Kosovo war. The reason, in part, is that in the past, the desire to enter China was based on projected earnings, but in 1998, those projections became a reality. James Cameron's t.i.tanic t.i.tanic broke all the records for foreign releases and earned $40 million at the box office in China, even in the midst of an economic downturn. broke all the records for foreign releases and earned $40 million at the box office in China, even in the midst of an economic downturn.

China chill is significant above all in what it tells us about the priorities and power wielded today by the multinationals. Financial self-interest in business is nothing new, nor is it in itself destructive. What is new is the reach and scope of these megacorporations' financial self-interest, and the potential global consequences, in both international and local terms. These consequences will be felt not in boisterous celebrity standoffs between such players as Rupert Murdoch, Michael Eisner, Martin Scorsese and Chris Patten, all of whom have the resources and clout to advance their positions regardless of minor setbacks. Disney and News Corp are moving swiftly ahead in China, yet Tibet remains a cause celebre among movie stars and musicians, while Patten's book, after quickly finding another publisher, certainly sold more copies as a result of the controversy. Rather, the lasting effects, once again, will be in the self-censors.h.i.+p that the media conglomerates are now in a position to seed down through the ranks of their organizations. If news reporters, editors and producers have to take into account their moguls' expansionist agendas when reporting on foreign affairs, why stop at China? Wouldn't coverage of the Indonesian government's genocide in East Timor raise concerns for any multinational doing, or hoping to do, business in populous Indonesia? What if a conglomerate has deals in the works in Nigeria, Colombia or Sudan? This is a long way from the rhetoric following the fall of the Berlin Wall, when the media moguls claimed that their cultural products would carry the torch of freedom to authoritarian regimes. Not only does that mission appear to have been swiftly abandoned in favor of economic self-interest, but it seems that it may be the torch of authoritarianism that is being carried by those most determined to go global.

Copyright Bullies After NATO's 1999 air strikes provoked Serbian ”rock rallies” where teens in Chicago Bulls caps defiantly burned the American flag, few would be naive enough to rea.s.sert the tired old refrain that MTV and McDonald's are bringing peace and democracy to the world. What was crystallized in those moments when pop culture bridged the wartime divide, however, was that even if there exists no other cultural, political or linguistic common ground, Western media have made good on the promise of introducing the first truly global lexicon of imagery, music and icons. If we agree on nothing else, virtually everyone knows that Michael Jordan is the best basketball player that ever lived.

That may seem a minor achievement compared with the grand ”global village” p.r.o.nouncements made after the collapse of Communism, but it is an accomplishment sufficiently vast to have revolutionized both the making of art and the practicing of politics. Verbal or visual references to sitcoms, movie characters, advertising slogans and corporate logos have become the most effective tool we have to communicate across cultures-an easy and instant ”click.” The depth of this form of social branding came into sharp focus in March 1999 when a scandal erupted over a popular textbook used in American public schools. The Grade 6 math text was riddled with mentions and photographs of well-known brand-name products: Nike shoes, McDonald's, Gatorade. In one instance, a word problem taught students to calculate diameters by measuring an Oreo cookie. Predictably, parents' groups were furious over this milestone in the commercialization of education; here was a textbook, it seemed, with paid advertorial. But McGraw-Hill, the book's publisher, insisted that the critics had it all wrong. ”You're trying to get into what people are familiar with, so they can see, hey, mathematics is in the world out there,” Patricia S. Wilson, one of the book's authors, explained. The brand-name references weren't paid advertis.e.m.e.nts, she said, but an attempt to speak to students with their own references and in their own language-to speak to them, in other words, in brands.18 n.o.body is more acutely aware of how enmeshed language and brands have become than the brand managers themselves. Cutting-edge trends in marketing theory encourage companies not to think of their brands as a series of attributes but to look at the psychosocial role they play in pop culture and in consumers' lives. Cultural anthropologist Grant McCracken teaches corporations that to understand their own brands they have to set them free. Products like Kraft Dinner, McCracken argues, take on a life of their own when they leave the store-they become pop-culture icons, vehicles for family bonding, and creatively consumed expressions of individuality.19 The most recent chapter in this school of brand theory comes from Harvard professor Susan Fournier, whose paper, ”The Consumer and the Brand: An Understanding within the Framework of Personal Relations.h.i.+ps,” encourages marketers to use a human-relations.h.i.+p model in conceptualizing the brand's place in society: is it a wife through an arranged marriage? A best friend or a mistress? Do customers ”cheat” on their brand or are they loyal? Is the relations.h.i.+p a ”casual friends.h.i.+p” or a ”master/slave engagement”? As Fournier writes, ”this connection is driven not by the image the brand 'contains' in the culture, but by the deep and significant psychological and socio-cultural meanings the consumer bestows on the brand in the process of meaning creation.” The most recent chapter in this school of brand theory comes from Harvard professor Susan Fournier, whose paper, ”The Consumer and the Brand: An Understanding within the Framework of Personal Relations.h.i.+ps,” encourages marketers to use a human-relations.h.i.+p model in conceptualizing the brand's place in society: is it a wife through an arranged marriage? A best friend or a mistress? Do customers ”cheat” on their brand or are they loyal? Is the relations.h.i.+p a ”casual friends.h.i.+p” or a ”master/slave engagement”? As Fournier writes, ”this connection is driven not by the image the brand 'contains' in the culture, but by the deep and significant psychological and socio-cultural meanings the consumer bestows on the brand in the process of meaning creation.”20 So here we are, for better or for worse, having meaningful committed relations.h.i.+ps with our toothpaste and co-dependencies on our conditioner. We have almost two centuries' worth of brand-name history under our collective belt, coalescing to create a sort of global pop-cultural Morse code. But there is just one catch: while we may all have the code implanted in our brains, we're not really allowed to use it. In the name of protecting the brand from dilution, artists and activists who try to engage with the brand as equal partners in their ”relations.h.i.+ps” are routinely dragged into court for violating trademark, copyright, libel or ”brand disparagement” laws-easily abused statutes that form an airtight protective seal around the brand, allowing it to brand us, but prohibiting us from so much as scuffing it.