A Twisted Perspective

Mr. Laelaps and I don’t have TV in our little apartment, and everytime I watch it I can think of new reasons why! But since I’m watching my friend’s poodles this weekend, in a house that has a master bathroom slightly larger than our living room at home, I decided to indulge in a little mindless TV watching to break the cavernous silence and entertain me while I worked on the most recent knitting project.

 All was going well until a commerical for Franklin Templeton investments came on. It started off with a scene of a busy open-air marketplace, somewhere in Asia. There are stalls for everything, carts loaded with fruit, old ladies selling fish, spice stores, and people and animals everywhere. It is the perfect picture of a thriving local, economy. Once the viewer has had a chance to absorb the picture, the voiceover begins, “You see a traditional marketplace…”

Well, no argument there.

Then the perspective puts on a pair of spectacles and the view transforms as the voice continues: “…But we see an investment in what is now one of the largest modern asian supermarket chains.” In the new picture we see a young beautiful Chinese woman dressed in Western clothes, pushing a shopping cart down the bright, white, sterile lanes of what could be my local A&P, looking at row upon row of unidentifiable food products in plastic, sealed containers and smiling at her infant.

As I stared in horror at the visage of global sameness and corporate control, the voice over continued to ennumate the reasons I should invest with their company and how I could order a prospectus. Yikes. I don’t even know what to say to that sort of worldview. Literally, the first 15 seconds of that commercial I had spent wishing that I could go to that marketplace and shop and enjoy all the diverse colors and flavors and people. Then I am informed that only a true visonary could transform that lovely place into…the place where I shop every damn week.

~ by lycaon on January 19, 2008.