THE ROGUE
Since Morgan Spurlock’s
documentary was a response,
in part, to product placement
on Heroes, we talked to Hayden
Panettiere’s publicist about
whether the actress would pose
with Spurlock for a photo evoking
John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Her
publicist was interested, but we
backed off because Spurlock is
40 and Panettiere is 21.
SINCE THIS IS AMERICA, THERE’S
VOTE MERRELL!
GOT TO BE A CHEERLEADER. IN
In Spurlock’s movie, he interviews consumer advocate and
Al Gore slayer Ralph Nader. “For
heaven’s sake,” Nader says, “if
you’re going to sell out, you ought
to be paid. I was supposed to be
paid with a shoe, but that didn’t
fit. You’ve got to find someone
who can use a size 12 narrow.”
THIS CASE HER NAME IS CLAIRE,
A JUNIOR AT COSTA VERDE HIGH
in California who’s nervous about her first day at school. The other girls seem
too pretty, too cool, and too mean, and if Claire fails to keep her superpowers
undercover (the same powers that saved the world at the end of season one of
Heroes), “the Company” may kill her, savage her family, and take over the
planet. So, to make her feel better, her dad (who’s a superhero himself, of
course, but has some seriously wacky ties to the bad guys) does what any
American dad would do: He hands her the keys to the family car.
“The Rogue?” exclaims the cheerleader, effervescently played by Hayden
Panettiere. “Oh, Daddy, you’re the best father ever!” After a hug, the camera
pans to the Rogue, the Nissan Rogue, in case you had forgotten the Rogue’s
name in the intervening eight seconds. To jog your memory in the next episode, the Rogue will get stolen. And then the Rogue will reappear in several
episodes. And there will even be an accompanying comic book, called The
Rogue, that you can download, which over its five short pages features . . . oh,
my . . . 14 images of, yes, the Nissan Rogue.
For Morgan Spurlock, the documentary filmmaker and provocateur behind
Super Size Me, this brazen product placement was just too much. “From the
minute you wake up, wherever you go, someone is marketing to you. Do I
really need to be marketed to when I’m standing at the urinal? Does there
SUPERSIZE ME . . . NOT!
Spurlock refused to be
photographed with brand logos
in his mouth, an homage to the
poster of his most successful
documentary. When he asked
if he could get a cut of our
advertising revenues for this
story, we declined.
BED HEAD
Hyatt paid to be part of Spurlock’s movie, including an ad
that ran within the film. One
coauthor of this piece checked
into a hotel to get some peaceful
writing time away from his
family. And since Hyatt didn’t
buy an ad in this story, we’ll tell
you that it was a . . .
