Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Visual cliches

On those nights when I have no urgent business at hand, I like to settle in my recliner and flick through the television channels in search of cliches. Over time, I’ve identified dozens of visual clichés but will focus here on five. I call them finger to the monitor; chopsticks; Cubs cap; underarm overexposure; and couch cuddle.
The most exercised of all visual cliches on television is the finger pointing to the monitor. You’ve seen it half a million times, mostly in commercials for technical training schools and the kinds of law firms that Republican politicians say are destroying the American dream. Most commonly, Older Guy leans over Younger Gal and points out something very important that’s on the computer screen. Younger Gal nods slowly and forms a smile that suggests everything in the cosmology is beginning to make sense. We at home never see what’s on that screen, though I suspect in most cases it’s Nick Nolte’s mug shot.
The chopsticks chestnut is the toughest of the five to find and therefore the most satisfying. It’s almost exclusive to the Sorkin and Kelley types of serials that involve lots of self-absorbed white-collar professionals who are very good at what they do. Whenever these telegenic bores are eating around a boardroom table or in the judge’s chambers, you can bet the cuisine is Chinese and they are using chopsticks. For college-aged characters, blue-collar stiffs, and inveterate bachelors, pizza serves the same purpose; the camera captures a couple pizza boxes flung open on a coffee table or the floor. Clearly, the chopsticks somehow imply sophistication, while gaping pizza boxes assure us the characters are not at all uptight or sell-outs—in fact, they’re regular guys.
Speaking of regular guys, that’s where the Cubs ball caps come in. This cliché was most prominent from about 1980 to 1995, when directors put a Chicago Cubs ball cap on a character as a way to assure the viewing public there’s nothing to fear: this guy is totally regular. More often than not this guy was Jim Belushi. But we all know Jim Belushi is not a regular guy. I’d go so far as to say he’s been irregularly lucky in his line of work.
Regular guys in TV and the movies have forsaken the Cubs. Instead, they now wear Boston Red Sox caps. This gradual shift may have begun with the death of Cubs’ announcer Harry Caray, a hero to most regular guys, or it may have something to do with the disproportionate attention given to New Englander Ben Affleck.
If you watch TV for a couple hours and don’t tune out the commercials, you’re bound to see more bare armpits than you could shake a Lady Speed Stick at. In most of these cases, the sight of a young lady’s naked underarm is gratuitous: she may be contemplating what flavor of breath mint to buy or which wealthy guy at the bar to pursue, when suddenly she raises one or both arms and flaunts her stuff. I’m convinced there’s nothing organic about this phenomenon. The shots are so commonplace and cold-blooded that a marketing consultant must have decided pristine underarms attract our attention and put us in a buying mood.
This same visionary has enlightened the industry on how to sell sensitive products and low-fat cookies to women. The trick is to choose an attractive brunette in her early thirties (blondes cannot be trusted to provide advice on sensitive products and low-fat cookies) and tuck her in the corner of a white love seat or couch, where she will cuddle her knees to her tummy and wrap both hands around a coffee mug as she gives us the inside word on a feminine hygiene spray or a prescription drug that in rare cases may cause high blood pressure, night sweats, and the desire to behave like Ted Nugent.