Packaging Patriotism


November 10, 2001

[BLUEGRASS VERSION OF STAR SPANGLED BANNER

BROOKE GLADSTONE: For the first time in a long time, old-fashioned patriotism seems like an easy sell. Pitching patriotism hasn't always been so simple. Artists and ad men seeking to sell the message of national pride have had to tailor it to fit different audiences. Some old icons retain their freshness. Others are discarded and replaced. And the old songs go in and out of style.

Our own Mike Pesca explores the commodity that is love of country and what makes people buy it.

MIKE PESCA:Patriotism, Samuel Johnson famously remarked, is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Diderot called patriotism an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it. To Schopenhauer, patriotism was a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.

For more sentiments that seem unfamiliar in these patriotic times, pick up Bartlett's Book of Familiar Quotations. There you'll find dozens of thoughts which range from cautious to downright contemptuous of the notion of patriotism. Even George Washington saw the limitations of patriotism. It was an insufficient premise for a war, he said. And then there's Thoreau. I'll hold on to his quote for later.

So what's the common thread among these leading figures of Western civilization who scorned patriotism? They all died before hearing Lee Greenwood.

LEE GREENWOOD: [SINGING] AND I'M PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN WHERE AT LEAST I KNOW I'M FREE--

MAN: Nowadays the songs that are coming from patriotic motivation seem to be more entertaining -- it's more interesting - it's more diversified - it's-- the best example of that is Lee Greenwood's song Proud To Be An American. It is a great song!

MIKE PESCA: Gary Smith knows patriotic entertainment. He's produced the last four Democratic National Conventions, both Clinton inaugurations and patriotic TV specials like the Bi-Centennial of the Constitution. He says when it comes to patriotic fare on TV there really is no such thing as a cliche. That's why to a lot of Americans Celine Dion's rendition of God Bless America during the Tribute to Heroes Fundraiser struck a chord --a very loud chord.

CELINE DION: [SINGING] GOD BLESS AMERICA MY HOME SWEET HOME--

MIKE PESCA: God bless America was written in 1918. Along with America the Beautiful, final version 1913, it remains the soundtrack of patriotism. Producer Gary Smith says that patriotic programming stands apart from the rest of television because it's concerned with building a mass audience, not just the 18 to 34 year old demographic.

GARY SMITH: The program material that would tend to use patriotic themes, Americana themes, music would tend to gear to a slightly older audience--

MIKE PESCA: But kids today don't like their messages quite so fruited and plain -- which would be fine if their support for the war effort weren't so crucial. Having been fawned over by advertisers for their disposable income, Gen-Y now finds itself in the position of being recruited.

GARY SMITH: This target audience is, is very informed; they're smart folks, and they're going to get beneath the veneer of just the plain old, you know, God bless America and really ask tough questions like what am I going to get out of it?

MIKE PESCA: Ray DeThorne is an account director for the Leo Burnett Advertising Agency in Chicago. He oversees the Army's Army of One campaign which is designed to appeal to the youth of today, kids who, DeThorne says, don't think that the Army is all that cool. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER]

RAY DeTHORNE: Part of this campaign going on the air basically what we heard was if you go the Army you either crawl around in the mud or you ride around in a tank. For the people that we're talking to who are 16 to 24 year old, patriotism is probably latent at best.

MIKE PESCA: The latest Army of One ad is called Generations. [MUSIC UP FULL] It shows a series of sepia-tinged photos of soldiers leading up to the tag line: Every Generation Has Its Heroes, and This One Is No Different. Army of One.

RAY DeTHORNE: It was original music just to kind of pull the emotion out of you, and we stayed around from lyrics to be honest with you, because I would rather you bring to life what you're feeling as opposed to me trying to tell you what it is that you should be feeling.

[MUSIC UP FULL]

These people want the substance; not the sizzle. And patriotism is back here, but I don't think that any product or service should really just stand behind the flag. It's, it's ultimately what are you delivering and how are you adding value.

MIKE PESCA: Uncle Sam will not be pointing his fingers at this generation. Another patriotic icon consigned to the surplus pile of history was created by Massachusetts artist Phil Bissell [sp?]. In 1959, Bissell, then a sports cartoonist for the Boston Globe, came up with the Minuteman logo for the Boston - now New England Patriots.

PHIL BISSELL: It was very staid, and it appeared as if the guy was digging in and ready to go to work.

MIKE PESCA: For years Bissell's scowling Minuteman assumed a 3-point stance on Patriot helmets. Then in 1993 the team decided it needed to goose merchandise sales. Out when the patriot who looked like he could have served on Uncle Sam's security detail and in came a vague profile and some suggestive silver streaks designed by the league office.

PHIL BISSELL: You see the new one is really a fast-moving flash on the side of the helmet for instance or on the shoulders that doesn't really depict anything except a very - well, just a little picture, that's all.

MIKE PESCA: The update sold some jerseys, but tradition-rich symbols such as the old Minuteman --Bissell calls him "Pat" -- are cutting-edge these days. At least that's the theory of screenwriter Ed Neumaier [sp?]. He drew upon 1940s propaganda films like Why We Fight and more recent television images for the movie Starship Troopers set hundreds of years in the future.

ED NEUMAIER: This was kind of inspired by the Gulf War which was going on right as we started this project, so a lot of this is meant to evoke CNN coverage of the-- Gulf War.

MIKE PESCA: This bit of media commentary may have been lost inside a tale of space insect warfare, but it was clearly the filmmaker's intention as the director's track of the Starship Trooper's DVD makes clear.

Released in '97, the movie couldn't have commented on the current war, but replace the phrase "giant bug from outer space" with "finely milled anthrax from Trenton" and you could be watching the Fox News channel.

Starship Troopers ends with one element of patriotic media which we've yet to see during the current war. [CROWD CHEERING BACKGROUND/DRAMATIC MUSIC]

MAN: One day it will all be over, and everyone will forget that this was the moment -- this is when it turned.

ED NEUMAIER: Patriotic speech at the end of a movie in, in the World War II movies - well every - every one of them had one.

MIKE PESCA: Ed Neumaier.

ED NEUMAIER:And they always kind of ended in an open-ended way. It was assumed that we would keep on fighting and win, and there's always a point in a war where you have to tell your soldiers it's good to die. If you can do that, you can get a lot of good soldiers. [CROWD CHEERING UPROARIOUSLY/HIGHLY DRAMATIC MUSIC]

MIKE PESCA: Which brings us back to that Thoreau quote. Writing about the kind of patriot who disregards all judgment, Thoreau wrote some can be patriotic who have no self-respect. They love the soil which makes their graves but have no sympathy for the spirit which may still animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads.

MAN: The only good bug is a dead bug! [BUG SCREAM ?? MACHINE GUN FIRE ??]

MIKE PESCA: For On the Media, I'm Mike Pesca.