Being Peter Kim

Deconstruction and Grand Theft Auto

Is pop culture mostly full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?  Or can the capitalist motives of authors and analysts be defended when analysing icons like SoaP and Borat?

I've started a new category on this blog to reflect a trend I'm seeing, drawing from influences like Stallybrass and Berger, Johnson and Gladwell:  deconstruction.

The latest example I've stumbled into: The Meaning And Culture of Grand Theft Auto, via CNet News.  Chapter titles include:

1. Spilling Hot Coffee? Grand Theft Auto as Contested Cultural Product
2. Political Interface: The Banning of GTA3 in Australia
3. Virtual Gangstas, Coming to a Suburban House Near You: Demonization, Commodification, and Policing Blackness
4. Play-Fighting: Understanding Violence in Grand Theft Auto III
5. The Subversive Carnival of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
6. Grand Theft Video: Running and Gunning for the U.S. Empire
7. From Stompin’ Mushrooms to Bustin’ Heads: Grand Theft Auto III as Paradigm Shift
8. Everyday Play: Cruising for Leisure in San Andreas
9. Cruising in San Andreas: Ludic Space and Urban Aesthetics in Grand Theft Auto
10. Experiencing Place in Los Santos and Vice City
11. Positioning and Creating the Semiotic Self in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
12. Against Embedded Agency: Subversion and Emergence in GTA3
13. Inviting Subversion: Metalepses and Tmesis in Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto Series
14. Playing with Style: Negotiating Digital Game Studies

Chapter excerpts are available here.  And I thought it was just a video game.

Deconstructing Borat

Marketers are deconstructing Borat the same way a college student would deconstruct Winston Smith or Bartleby.

Lessons learned so far:
- Why Borat goes where SoaP could not (Marketing Profs Daily Fix)
- How Borat's MySpace page is better than the average marketing shill (Adrants)
- Borat proves that WOM marketing really does work (Jaffe Juice)
- Borat shows that if you want success today, create something good (Lefsetz Letter)
- Borat's lesson: don't underestimate the competition (CNBC)

And I thought it was just a movie by a British guy who appears to be making fun of Kazakhstan when he's really making fun of the United States.  Why didn't Ricky Bobby get this kind of attention?

A Chicken. Then Snakes. What next?

It ain't over for Snakes on a Plane.  Although media coverage calls the film a financial disappointment, we've only been through one weekend.  Calculating the P&L of a film can be tricky and isn't as straightforward as revenue less expense - see this example of how crazy things can get.

So now marketers will take these snakes back to their white collar labs and dissect them, in the same spot they autopsied a subservient chicken.  What will they find?

Some will mistake correlation for causation and make one of the remaining ten animals of the Chinese zodiac the star of their next viral marketing campaign.  Actually, narrow that down to eight - Crispin is making the Rabbit into a star and and someone trots out monkeys every year.

Others will go back to basics - "you have to start with a good product."  True, but the success of SoaP isn't about how seminal the film's content was - it's about the overwhelming consumer involvement in its marketing.

I believe that advertising has to do more than drive site traffic - otherwise we'd consider the Carl's Jr. + Paris Hilton ads on par with 1984.  Great advertising drives sales.  So the stage is set for the biggest viral hit of 2007, which will:

• Sync up with current memes - rising cultural trends.  This is tougher than it sounds; if you've ever produced a commercial (and I'm not talking SpotRunner here), you know how difficult timing can be.  You've got to be smart, in the loop, and a little bit lucky to succeed.
• Involve consumers early on, but not from the very beginning.  People are much better at critiquing something that already exists than creating something on their own.  Why are there so many more readers and commenters than actual bloggers?  Inventing is tough, innovation is how you make it your own.
• Come from a small to medium sized business.  Might be a smaller part of a whole - but marketers with fewer resources and less to lose tend to be much more creative.
• Be part of a new entry in an established category.  Derivative of the point above - less baggage to deal with.
• Use material from cultural and social edge that is comically acceptable, but would be uncomfortable or inappropriate with a slight twist.  Subservient chicken wouldn't be funny if it were a real person.  Snakes on a Plane could have easily been just another horror movie.  It's material that just approaches the line but doesn't cross it for an unexpected reason.  Cross the line and it's over.

So what's it going to be?  Depends on the brand and product - but next year does happen to be year of the pig...

UPDATE:  See my SoaP commentary on CNBC, below.