Levi's American Product: Whitman's Words

Is the late Walt Whitman, left. wearing Levi's Silver Tab, Classic Cut or Relaxed jeans in this early photo? : )

* To what extent does the Levi’s campaign celebrate, confuse, or distort Whitman’s poetic project?
I truly believe taking the arts where non-traditional audiences exist and potentially new "fans" reside, can only be positive.

How can exposing the "younger generation" to Walt Whitman be a bad thing? Unless you had a zealous English teacher growing up who grounded you in American poetry or -- are an English major or -- have a bent for Walt Whitman poetry, chances are extremely good, you are not familiar with Whitman and his words. So this novel approach, though consumeristic, is a very good thing. Although the ads are completely built to sell more Levi jeans, the ads are eloquent, poetic, very well done. I don't even mind they are trying to sell me a product because of the beautiful words, "the voice" and the compelling imagery -- which, and who, far outshadow the sales pitch.

* What was your own reaction to the “Go Forth” ads?
I was thrilled to hear Whitman's poetry come forth. So much so, I didn't really look too closely at the jeans Levi wants me to buy. I saw nature, enthusiasm, youth, heard lyrical poetry being spoken, felt a pulse.

Under normal circumstances when I hear or see classics being used commercially, I am instantly irritated and go as far, as fast as I can, away from the commercial or pitch.

I watched both ads half a dozen times and each time, can't argue with the quality or eloquence. I am assuming all Whitman's property rights issues are addressed, so I don't have to worry about theft. Well done. I think Wieden+Kennedy, the advertiser group who designed the ads, raised the bar on this campaign. I can't recall anything in my recent experience that compares to the magnetic quality of the ads.

* In what ways do themes of consumption, advertising, and promotion show up in Whitman’s work?
I am hard-pressed to have a good answer for this question. Because I have only recently read and enjoyed a couple of Whitman pieces in this class, I don't know enough to be able to search for themes or passages which speak to "consumption, advertising and promotion." The only consumption we read about was the consumption of living an every day good life in Whitman's "Song of Myself." He took no prisoners in that poem...consumed every experience in this human life and listed all the rest. Wish I had more to offer, but don't.


* Do you buy McCracken’s claim that advertisers now play the cultural roles that poets played in earlier eras?
I agree that advertising via the Internet, I Phones and all other forms of social-community-traditional media play a small part of the Poet, but these media forms do not by any measure, replace or encompass the role of Poet, as detailed by Emerson, Fuller and Whitman.

I don't see advertisers as common folk living among common people, having common experiences and writing about them. Advertisers instead belong to a numbers-driven, shark-infested cultural selling machine which relies extensively on complex research as opposed to living and using day-to-day experiences to express their ideas.

Advertisers are not one man or woman, such as a Poet Laureate, writing soley about the beauty of the day; instead they are a body of professionals whose sole job it is to sell things and if they can incorporate some aspect of today's beauty into their ad campaign, then bravo. Advertisers sole purpose is to creative seductive selling pieces and platforms.

The Poet's sole purpose is, ". . .He bestows on every object or quality its fit proportions neither more nor less. He is the arbiter of the diverse and he is the key. He is the equalizer of his age and land. . ." said Whitman from his Preface to Leaves of Grass, 1855.

In no way is an advertiser an equalizer or a proportionalist.
Quite the opposite, advertisers are convincers, opportunists and spin masters.
Poets are to be purists, reporters and scribes.
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