By DANNY GALLAGHER

Advertising has become a beast that cannot be fed until it ends up destroying itself like Mr. Creosote from Monty Python's "Meaning of Life" ordering the never-ending mutton bowl at his nearby Olive Garden.

Don't believe me? Just walk less than five blocks around your neighborhood in any direction. Everywhere you look, there's an ad glued, taped, stapled or tacked to something begging and pleading you to buy their latest product, come to their newest sale or carry something through airport security for them.

Now, not even movie theaters are safe from this marketing menace. It used to be the only ads you'd see at a movie theater were the posters hanging on the lobby walls and the trailers that ran before the new releases. Now, you can't use the hand blower in the men's room without being told to "Drink Coke."

The whole reason people used to go to the movie theaters was to get away from the madness of Madison Avenue. Occasionally, there were a few hidden product placements sprinkled throughout the movies but they were hardly noticeable like bug traces in a $12 ball park hot dog. Of course, all that changed for the worst with one movie.

"Harley Davidson & the Marlboro Man" was billed as your average, All-American action adventure along with additional adjectives that apply to the "A" alliteration arrangement. Sure, there are thousands of other movies that get treated, made and released solely to sell something other than seats and imitation butter popcorn topping. But the only way this film could've made it's marketing message even more obvious is if a gang of bikers broke through the screen and started beating random patrons in the theater while whispering in little kids' ears "smoking makes you look cool."

It's your typical guy flick except it's injected with more anabolic steroids than a German gymnast. Two butch guys with names that require a "TM" on their driver's licenses bleed cool, which how to sell motorbikes and coffin nails to guys without promising that a second rate underwear model will ask for their hand in marriage after delivering them to the house.

Their favorite watering hole is in trouble of going belly up, so the twosome hatch a plot to rob a bank to score enough coins to keep the beer taps flowing. But they rob the wrong transport and end up stealing a shipment of "crystal dream," a drug that's nearly 100 percent addictive. So the audience learns that drugs are bad, but riding in a metal deathtrap with no helmet and smoking until one of your lungs needs to be cleaned by a chimney sweep is still cool by comparison.

The sheer hypocrisy of the advertising that contrasts bad drugs with good drugs actually made me want to laugh more than it made me want to get in a street fight with a random stranger named Phillip Morris. We all know that tobacco executives are more in need of a spine donation than most of the Earth's mollusks, but the fact they allowed one of their biggest brand names to be used in this movie makes them look that much sleazier. It's like their PR department is going out of their way to make them more appealing to Boris Badenov's disciples.

But enough of the tobacco bashing, this is starting to sound like a "Truth" commercial starring Michael Moore.

Once studios figured out making the movie the commercial wasn't working as well as they hoped, they did the next worst thing. They actually started running ads before the movie started. It's hard to pinpoint exactly when this trend started, but there used to be ads for stuff you would want at the theater like Coca-Cola, Doritos or M&Ms. Now they run ads for just about anything - hair gel, blue jeans, SUVs that need a team of horses to pull them.

That doesn't make much sense because when I'm sitting in a darkened theater waiting for the flick to start, I'm more inclined to crave a sugary snack and a refreshing drink. I don't get a sudden craving for "Bod" body fragrances unless I haven't bathed in three weeks.

But I sure could go for a nice, soothing, 20% less tar Marlboro cigarette right now. Does anybody have a light?

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©2004 by Danny Gallagher

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