Quote of the Day | August 1, 2008: That's the Dance of Advertising

Robert J. Thompson's 1997 Television's Second Golden Age, describing a plot on eighties television staple, Thirtysomething:

The writers did get the last laugh, however. In one of the final episodes of the series, Michael resigns his position at the advertising agency when Miles forces him to fire an actor who'd been working on a beer campaign. The patriotic sponsor, he told Michael, had been offended when the actor's participation in a rally protesting the Gulf War had been covered by a local TV news report. Reportedly based on a claim made by actor Woody Harrelson that he was taken off a Miller Lite commercial because of his publicly vocalized opinion against U.S. military involvement in the Persian Gulf, the episode featured Drentell's insistence that the client's desires must be met at all costs.

For two years, Michael's relationship with Drentell had added an element of nighttime soap-opera intrigue to the usually domesticated series. The previous season had ended in a Dallas-like story of Michael and Elliot's almost-successful corporate takeover of the agency. Since then, Miles Machiavellian pragmaticism had come to represtent both the antithesis of Michael's ideals and the key to his professional future. His resignation provided a climax to two seasons' worth of conflict. Assessing Michael's moral outrage over the mandate that the actor-activist be fired, Miles, with thunder clapping in the background, launched into an eloquent if manic expose and damnation of how the advertising business works in the real world:

He [the actor in question] expressed an unpopular opinion. No one wants to be unpopular. That's why were here. That's the dance of advertising. We help people become popular. Through popularity comes acceptance. Acceptance leads to bliss. We calm and reassure. We embrace people with the message that we're all in it together. That our leaders are infallible and that there is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- wrong. That is what we do. It's what we've always done, and under your gifted stewardship, what we will continue to do onward toward the millennium. In return for our humanitarian service, we are made rich. I'm sorry if you misunderstood the nature of this covenant, but you've done so well up till now -- I thought you knew.

Tags: Robert J. Thompson, Television's Second Golden Age, Advertising