Boorish Billboard

9 May 2007

Boorish Billboard

This entry was posted on 5/9/2007 1:30 AM and is filed under Marriage, Assignment of Meaning.

The Chicago billboard advertising divorce legal service is a treasure trove of social commentary. See: Divorce Billboard. Coincidently the law firm that put it up is an all female firm - not sure if that is relevant. The billboard simply says: "Life's short. Get a Divorce." The words are flanked only by a picture of a man's bare chest and a woman's cleavage. The talk radio stations are salivating with analysis, other attorneys groan that this is just the latest bad-taste advertising for their profession, and the religious right is sure to note, "see, we told you they are all cretins of debauchery."

Other than the usual suspects' ruffled feathers mentioned above, the analysis of this simple message is a gold mine in the assignment of meaning. Everyone seems to put a deep meaning in the two sentences with five words total. Clearly the offending law firm has struck a sour nerve. Advertising that gets a little too close to the truth is sometimes dangerous for the advertisers. Radio talk show hosts have been asking, "What does it say about our society?" Well, for one it cuts to the chase that marriage in today's America is a ruse. People and society have been holding marriage up as a sacred cow while in reality beating marriage to death for decades. 

Sociologists should agree that modern marriage has nothing to do with raising children, perpetuating society, or love. It instead has everything to do with entertainment. Couples get married either by subconscious or design to simply be amused by the latest pop culture, entertainment value of marriage. Any children can be cared for by nannies, relatives, neighbors, or grand parents. An economy relentless in its deconstruction of the middle class leaves the unassuming couple unable to attain the entertainment pop culture life that was implied was at their finger tips when they got married. Once a couple is locked legally in the contract of marriage, society adds insult to injury and seems to work diligently in a collective hive to make sure they are economically beat to death - day care, school fees, insurance, taxes, mortgages, car payments, and on and on. The billboard simply suggests if you want out of that marriage construct, be sure and go for it.

That idea of getting out of the modern entertainment marriage so easily makes all parties uncomfortable. Perhaps it is not that the offending attorneys are all female that is relevant at all, but rather perhaps, they are showing their youth and naivety about advertising. We all play patty cake in the big American play house - but you have to be more nuanced when you advertise about tragic realities. The morrow of the story is, beat around the reality bush and people are cool with the ad - wink, wink, nod.

This week's Wisconsin soldier to remember is Private First Class Rachel K. Bosveld, a member of the 527th Military Police, V Corps.  Pfc. Bosveld was killed Sunday October 26, 2003, in a mortar attack on the Abu Ghraib Police Station in Baghdad.  Rachel would have turned 20 on November 7, 2003.  She was a 2002 graduate of Waupun High School.  Rachel Bosveld was the fifth Wisconsin resident to die in the Iraq War.  She was the state's first female soldier to die since Sgt. Cheryl LaBeau-O'Brien, of Caledonia, who died in a helicopter accident during the first Gulf War in 1991.

3,377 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.

25,245 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring 2003.

72 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.

Soldier of the week and military casualty information sources: cnn.com; and, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.