Merchants of Cool
A couple months ago I saw "High School Musical" just to see what all the fuss was about. I felt like I was able to see straight through the thing, to where the strings were being pulled, to the puppeteers, not the writers of the script but to the marketing analysts who told the writers what to say. Many of its plot points and dramatic moments were clearly constructed out of market research. The drama teacher of the film was clearly designed to meet certain archetypes that have proven successful in the past. Her rule against cell phones in the class room met with predictable eye-rolling among the teen student characters--and the music! Awful! I like musicals but the soundtrack was like Christian hit radio on steroids.
Would you like to meet the people behind the music? Check out this Frontline documentary introducing us to the new gods of the American economy! The documentary reveals the truth behind mass media marketing in America: it is a new form of colonization. Teens are the new exploited peoples in America, a vast ocean of money vulnerable to corporations who know that over-worked parents can't defend their children from armies of marketing analysts.
Of course we've seen this scenario developing in various degrees ever since Colonel Tom Parker's Elvis Presley, which revealed the absurd marketing potential of the teen market. One can only hope that this current Disney-mania (Miley Cyrus, Jonas Brothers etc.) will explode into another open rebellion against media manipulation like the early 90's alternative movement, if only for a temporary short-lived while before the marketing machine learns how to turn that to its favor as well.
Here's part one of the documentary. You may notice that it is already out of date, which supports their point about how good market research is in moving us along at the breakneck pace of teen cool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YuO8Zw9vJo