Popular Culture Review Vol. 8, No. 2, August 1997 | Page 15

Expecting the Barbarians

11

The cultural critic Neil Postman has proposed this imaginary
TV commercial designed to sell a new California Chardonnay:
Jesus is standing alone in a desert oasis. A gentle
breeze flutters the leaves of the stately palms behind
him. Soft Mideastern music caresses the air. Jesus
holds in his hand a bottle of wine at which he gazes
adoringly. Turning toward the camera, he says,
'When I transformed water into wine at Cana, this is
what I had in mind. Try it today. You’ll become a
believer.'
Lest one be tempted to dismiss these fanciful scenarios out of hand.
Postman also points to the following actual ad which has appeared
numerous times on American network television:
[A commercial for Hebrew National Frankfurters]
features a dapper-looking Uncle Sam in his
traditional red, white, and blue outfit. While Uncle
Sam assumes appropriate facial expressions, a voice
over describes the delicious and healthful
frankfurters produced by Hebrew National. Toward
the end of the commercial, the voice stresses that
Hebrew National Frankfurters surpass federal
standards for such products. Why? Because, the
voice says as the camera shifts our point of view
upward toward heaven, 'We have to answer to a
Higher Authority.'^ ^
As Postman correctly argues, the issue here isn't blasphemy but
trivialization: the "equivocal tangency" of divine authority has been
transubstantiated into one more shoddy means to the end of selling
consumer products.

III.

An internationally-known family therapist once said in my
presence that the best legacy Depression-era parents could have left
their baby-boomer offspring was another Great Depression. Instead,
the mainstream American culture has now produced two consecutive