Advertainment and a Definition of Gender

The USA Network’s new television production, “The Starter Wife” blurs the increasingly faint line between entertainment and advertising by bringing the advertisers into the creative process at the beginning and writing the script to function primarily as an advertising vehicle for Pond’s facial care products. This dubious infiltration of the public consciousness is aimed primarily at women, using a script focused on issues important to women to suggest that Pond’s products could somehow play a crucial role in lives have been ravaged by divorce, helping women to “start over”. “The Starter Wife”, taken as a cultural text, accomplishes what it sets out to do; it redefines entertainment in order to reach into women’s homes and tap into their hopes and fears, while strategically placing their product into the storyline as a solution to life’s woes.  

A longstanding assumption in our culture is that “Entertainment is just for fun.” (Latterell 361) People have long been gathering in front of the television for that very purpose. Since its introduction to the American family home in the 1950’s, television has played a fundamental role in the cultural landscape. Every few years, the entire terrain of television changes as an innovative idea takes hold; in the 1970’s it was the game show that captivated the public consciousness, while 2000 saw the rise of reality television. Advertisers, always on the lookout for the most pervasive method to introduce their products, have tended to latch on to the latest trends as a forum for publicity. In the past, this has usually meant booking time during scheduled breaks in the entertainment in which to air commercials; however, as we can see with the introduction of “The Starter Wife” and its subtle message, this process may be changing. As advertising slyly escapes the bounds of the traditional commercial break, our assumptions about “entertainment” might need to be adjusted as well.

 “The Starter Wife” is not the first advertainment production. As Seth Stevenson reports in Slate Magazine, the movie “Gracie”, a TimeWarner film, was financed in large part by Gatorade, infusing the script with brand identity and product placement. (Stevenson) Furthermore, even the first Miss America pageant in 1921 was a promotional event held by hotel owners in Atlantic City, New Jersey as an attempt to draw tourism and show off their city. (Latterell 362) Entertainment has long been sponsored by profit-seeking entities looking to market their product or service to the spectators. The evolution towards advertainment is recent, and quite significant. It forces us to define entertainment. In order for a production to be “entertainment,” must it be a purely creative project without any mercenary purpose? Certainly there is gray area in such a widely applicable term, but many of us can agree that a production that is created for the sole reason of showcasing a product is missing the point of entertainment. As advertisers insert themselves into the creative process, we run the risk of gutting creativity and turning television programs into thinly veiled infomercials without anything resembling artistic merit.

Although the script of “The Starter Wife” is admittedly engaging in places, the pretense of art collapses in upon itself every time the heroine reaches for a tube of Pond’s. In actuality, the better the acting, production value, and dialogue, the more blurred the line between entertainment and advertising becomes. Even a normally critical viewer with the judgment to separate advertising from art might find themselves lulled into not noticing the product placement. The overall result is more seductive, which is why the medium is so effective.  A much more sinister consideration is the active targeting of women that “The Starter Wife” illustrates. Advertisers approach women by identifying their deepest fears and insecurities, and then offering an instant fix in the form of a product. In “The Starter Wife,” Pond’s advertisers created situations in the script that touched the raw nerve of self-esteem issues; namely fear of aging, sexuality, appearance, and relationship viability. (Taflinger) In each plot crisis, the heroine, played by a beautiful 40+ Debra Messing, reaches for a Pond’s product in order to arm herself and assuage her fears. During a dream sequence, a team of detectives interrogate the main character with a flashlight and call attention to “those bags” under her eyes. Immediately the scene cuts to Messing, awake and looking in the mirror, and vigorously applying a Pond’s product to her under-eye area. (Stevenson) Advertisers are altering the cultural landscape as they promulgate the idea that women have a societal mandate to be attractive, even in the midst of a divorce. Will the viewer look a little more closely at her under-eye area in the mirror long after the television is switched off? The advertisers are banking on it. 

Perhaps the most objectionable message “The Starter Wife is sending to women is that men and our relationships with them are the focus of our existence. Even our strong and lovely heroine, newly liberated from an inauthentic relationship, is repeatedly “rescued” by men throughout the pilot episode. In one scene, Molly is passed over for a table at an exclusive beachside restaurant until her husband’s rich and powerful male colleague takes her under his wing. Molly, grateful and worshipful, throws her head back and laughs at his command in order to impress the ladies who scorned and insulted her when she was denied a table. In another scene, Molly acts on her brave declaration to “try something new every day” and rows out into the waves. A large swell knocks her boat over and she slips under the water. Apparently she can’t swim, and it takes a handsome stranger to pull her to safety. 

One of the most telling segments is paraphrased as follows: 

Housekeeper: “Oh, Mrs. Kagan…” (hugs her tightly) “Will you be needing a housekeeper?” 

Molly: “I don’t know what I can afford until I know what the settlement will be.” 

Housekeeper: “Mrs. ____ got the household staff in her settlement!” 

Molly: “Mrs. ____ was sleeping with her lawyer.” 

Housekeeper: (Shrugs, as if to suggest that might be a viable option.) 

Molly: (frowning) “My lawyer is a woman.” Housekeeper and Molly grimace knowingly.           

Even at the start of the program, an animation rolls across the screen with three diamond engagement rings; small, medium, and large. A voiceover narrates in a whimsical tone, “A screenwriter’s wife (small), a director’s wife (medium), an executive producer’s wife (large).  Is this what Pond’s thinks of women? In 2007 a program is being produced that portrays women as wives of men, to be discarded, cheated on, or loved at the whim of the rich and benevolent husband? “The Starter Wife” is chock full of messages about womanhood that should concern a critical viewer; truly too many to mention. 

Advertising is a powerful medium that affects thousands of people daily. Advertisers, as much as any other group of people, have a responsibility to maintain a code of ethics. Numerous organizations exist as consumer watchdog agencies, government regulatory entities, as well as industry self-regulating bodies. But new forms of advertising require a fresh look at the codes that guide advertisers. Advertainment is a genre that allows products to be snuck into emotional segments of a plot that viewers might be too invested in to censor mentally. We cannot fully predict the consequences of such an understated medium on a culture already inundated with a constant barrage of ads. While many believe that we have learned to tune out these pleas for our time and money, the response to the latest form of guerilla advertising seems to suggest otherwise. Critics and viewers alike have bestowed upon “The Starter Wife” rave reviews. According to Multichannel News, 5.4 million viewers invited the program into their homes on May 31, an auspicious beginning for any television debut. (Reynolds) 

Whether the public will respond to this trend with their buying power is yet to be determined. If they can attract viewers and move product, advertisers will become still bolder in their approach. The quality of entertainment will suffer if we allow the creative process to be hijacked by corporations with an ulterior motive. When advertisers hold the creative power behind the programs we watch, they must portray us as weak, flawed, and missing something: their product. In this way, the values that define womanhood can be eroded by widespread messages such as the one that Pond’s has sent with “The Starter Wife”. Each of us, as consumers, has an incredible amount of power. We can vote with our remotes, and we can speak out against unethical advertising with our wallets. We have the power and the responsibility to insist upon quality entertainment and demand respect from the programming we allow into out lives. Ultimately, we dictate the cultural landscape we inhabit with the choices we make, and we owe it to our children to do so responsibly. 

Latterell, Catherine. Remix: Reading and Composing Culture. New York: Bedford/St. Martin, 2004.  

Stevenson, Seth. “How Pond’s infiltrated The Starter Wife writers’ room.” Slate May 2007: 11 Jun. 2007 < http://www.slate.com/id/2167188/>.  

Taflinger, Richard. “Me, Myself and I: Self-Esteem and Advertising.” Washington State University: Media and Communications Studies May 1996: 11 Jun. 2007 <http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~taflinge/esteem2.html>.  

Reynolds, Mike. “Good Ratings Start for USA’s The Starter Wife.” Multichannel News Jun 2007: 11 Jun. 2007 <http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6448814.html>.