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| Taco Bell Logo from Demolition Man |
The coolest thing happened at work the other day; I found
someone who likes Demolition Man as much as I do! That is rare! For those of
you who don’t know, Demolition Man is a 1993 action film starring Sylvester
Stallone, Wesley Snipes, and Sandra Bullock. The film takes place 30 years
after 1996 in a newly formed utopian society in the area formerly known as Los
Angeles. The film is very campy and fun for all of the wrong reasons, but it
also extremely violent. The film is rated R for violence language and sexual
situations. Anyone who has seen the film can tell you one of the most memorable
parts of the film is that Taco Bell is the only restaurant to survive the “franchise
wars” in the future. In other words, every restaurant in the future is a Taco
Bell…even the fancy ones. Product placement in its finest form. Though I will
say it is kind of subtle. Anyway, what many people do not realize is that Taco
Bell almost pulled out of being a brand partner in this film because they did
not want to be associated with such a violent film. In the director’s
commentary, he speaks about how Yum Brands (Tricon Global at the time) was very
upset about the R rating. My how things have changed since 1993.
It’s now 2013 and while we are only 10 years away from that
utopian society that Demolition Man promised us, we are seeing a lot more
product placement in controversial entertainment. No place is this more evident
the Viacom’s little sin bucket Showtime. What Viacom lacks in quality on CBS,
they more than make up for it by producing great shows on Showtime. Shameless, Dexter,
and Nurse Jackie, are all shows that I love, and will be discussing over a
series of blogs. All three of them make Demolition Man seem like The Sound of
Music as far as sex, violence, or drugs is concerned. 
Shameless is actually a really great show. However, I understand
that a lot of people may not like it because of the crass content and extreme
language nudity and situations. At the end of the day it is really about family
loyalty and being there for each other, just like Full House was, except Danny
Tanner never pretended his dead mother was alive so that he could continue
getting her government checks. But, what Shameless does have that Full House
didn’t is product placement. General mills has been there quite regularly, but
while researching this blog (i.e. watching the show) I saw placement that made
me laugh too much. When the main characters love interest is trying to convince
her to leave her brothers and sisters for a life of luxury, we see a bottle of
snuggle in the background. Irony if I have ever seen it. Snuggle is owned by
Sun Products which also makes Wisk laundry detergent. This is also visible in
the series. This appears to be a deliberate product placement as all of the
other labels in this scene are turned around. Let’s now look at one that might
not be deliberate. 
Later in this same episode we see one of the main characters
and his boyfriend sneaking around a convenience store in which they work so
that they may engage in intercourse in a manner in which the security cameras cannot
view them. As the two characters mate if you will, they are not on screen
instead the camera pans across the aisle in front of them showing a bunch of
products we can’t make out, and one that we can; Luzianne Tea. In fact the
camera stays on this product as the characters make whoopee. The Luzianne
Website, which was not accessible during the writing of this blog, claims that
they are “family owned since 1902.” Chances are that a company that has a
slogan that involves the word “family” would not want to be placed in this
show. Especially in the scene I described above. It is possible that the
director decided to use this product to show the contrast of what traditional
family values are compared to that of our modern society, but I am probably
reading too much into this. It is also a possibility that this was just a practical
location and that is just what happened to be on the shelf. I do plan on
contacting the company when their website is back up and seeing what they have
to say.
Overall, it is interesting that companies are willing to
become brand partners with these shows, but it may just work. I’m not here to
say if it’s good or bad, but it does make you think. As a supplement to this
blog, I am going to write a small piece tomorrow about the things Demolition
Man got wrong. The next official blog post will be this Sunday and it will be
titled “This better not affect my Rav4; examining the Spurlock effect in the
Hart of Dixie.” Just a warning, it will be long. Thanks for reading. I’m going
to end this night by watching Nashville and getting and ice cold (insert soda
name here.)
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