Ruin porn and the objectification of Detroit.
Can someone explain to me what, exactly, “ruin porn” is? Recently, it’s been linked to Detroit, most notably in Chrysler’s now-legendary Super Bowl ad. How is ruin porn, which Detroit-born-and-raised writer Paul Clemens describes in his new book Punching Out as “the arty delectation of Detroit’s destruction,” any different from Chilean Miners Porn? Or 2011 Egyptian Revolution Porn? Or Portland, Oregon, Porn? Anything worth shooting, it would seem, is potential pornography. Yet critics are slinging the ruin porn term around, conflating genuine interest and concern with insatiable horniness. What gives?
I understand that there is something of an exploitative aspect to the visual documentation of Motown’s decline, a rubbernecking yet relieved sentiment solicited and received by Gothic depictions of wreck and ruin – but provocative isn’t porno. Good photography commands pathos; great photography demands it, and right now, Detroit requires our attention. But how the act of paying attention got mixed up with masturbation is a mystery to me. Am I watching Google Porn every time I check Gmail? Are you? Please, dear reader, close your inbox and pull your hand out of your pants.
Detroit, Michigan, circa 2011, is the most emotive, pathetic, and photogenic subject in America right now. The city’s vacant lots, shuttered automotive plants, and abandoned houses are fascinating and horrifying, and we can’t turn away. But does insatiable consumer demand or instinctual human curiosity suddenly transform something into porn?
What’s more, the assumption that any art – verbal or visual – inspired by the Motor City is pornographic is a slap in the face to anyone who’s ever tried to affect positive change in the world via words or images; i.e., writers and artists. No one ever accused Solzhenitsyn of writing gulag porn or Margaret Mitchell of antebellum porn. Things aren’t so rosy in Detroit right now; Americans should see what’s happening to a great city.
Mother Jones derides Chrysler for utilizing “the cynical racism (or at least colonialism) of positioning Chrysler as a tough, gritty, 8 Mile-style brand that’s perfect for what marketers call the ‘urban core’ demographic; and using Detroit poverty porn to hawk [its] product while simultaneously trying to deride the media’s recent Detroit poverty porn.” (For the moment, we’ll set aside the incongruity that it’s okay for MoJo to mock Chrysler for perpetrating “poverty porn” out of one side of its mouth while promoting its own version out of the other.)
First of all, it’s incredibly naive to fault a failing (or failed) corporation’s attempt to re-brand and re-introduce itself to a new generation of consumers. True, Chrysler’s modus operandi over the last half-century seems to have been “How not to run a business,” and true, the ailing automaker should probably have been put to sleep and made to suffer the consequences of its managerial idiocy. But whether or not you think Chrysler deserved its $15 billion in bailout funds, the fact of the matter is that it did indeed receive them, ostensibly to keep manufacturing cars and to provide some kind of lifeline to the Motor City. And whether or not you think those new cars are classic Chrysler POS’s, the fact of the matter is that they need to be sold to someone. There’s an entire generation of Honda drivers to convert, yet Mother Jones expects Detroit to do so with tail fins, muscle cars, and depictions of Hank Greenberg-era Tigertown.
Secondly, the advertisement seeks to glorify Detroit, not wallow in its decline. There are no cheap Coney Island hot dog joints here, no bombed out buildings. “Imported From Detroit” promotes Motown as the city of Joe Louis; of the Larry Callahan & Selected of God choir; of Eminem. If that’s pornography, then so is this. Chrysler bet $9 million – a Super Bowl record – on their two-minute spot; it was seen by 111 million viewers during the most-watched spectacle in American television history, and as I write, the viral video has gotten more than 9 million hits on YouTube. “Likes” outnumber “dislikes” by more than 20 to 1. “Imported From Detroit” is easily the most discussed television advertisement since last year’s epic “Write the Future” campaign from Nike.
There’s no outcry over “Marilyn Porn” when Vanity Fair puts the long-deceased Ms. Monroe on its cover twice in two years (I’ve had magazines reject pitches because editors have deemed them too similar to articles published six years prior), yet there’s virtually no argument to be made about her contemporary newsworthiness (or lack thereof). Graydon Carter knows enough about magazines and marketing to give his customers what they want; is he a pornographer, too?
Image: JSFauxtaugraphy