This New York Magazine profile says a Zooey Deschanel is
not an Apple product like we all thought. A Zooey Deschanel is actually a constant, expansive, and versatile market force carried out through a persona. And a Zooey Deschanel persona is a composite of associations--associations with sexuality, quirkiness (sometimes mistaken for "originality"), innocence, fun, and indie credibility with all its emphasis on authenticity and sincerity. People, especially those who fancy themselves hip and/or original, explore these conceptual areas for opportunities to escape consumer culture. But every attempt to step outside that culture just expands the Market's reach there (and beyond). A Zooey Deschanel is that reach manifest; her persona is singular in that it does not change whether on or off camera, thereby invoking a claim to authenticity and sincerity that empowers it to follow the hip and the original to new areas into which the market can flourish.
Notes:
The
NYMagazine profile writer is aware and even seems vaguely complicit with the permanent marketing campaign of a Zooey Deschanel--until sticking this jab at the end using a Zooey Deschanel's own words:
Hearing the CD reminded me of how she had gotten very impassioned when I asked her if she and Gibbard bonded over music the first time they met. “I’m wary about this thing about being in the generation of social networking where people are like, ‘I am my musical taste,’” she said. “I am not just a collection of music. Or a collection of movies. I think that’s a thing that people romanticize: ‘Oh my God, she likes this band so she is a dream.’ I’ve definitely learned that you can easily get stars in your eyes. I’ll meet directors and they’ll be like, ‘I love Godard!’ And they love screwball comedies and they love all these things I love, and then it’s, like, ‘Wait a minute, that doesn’t mean they can make movies.’“
Just because somebody likes something doesn’t mean ... anything, really.”
Right there a Zooey Deschanel shoots down the sole reason she is appealing, and apes the very reaction that people have to her:
A Zooey Deschanel is so cute because she likes Hello Kitty! A Zooey Deschanel is a composite of associations and likes that constantly advertises those likes, thereby associating a Zooey Deschanel with whatever associations the audience has with the objects being liked.
In a sense, none of this is unique to a Zooey Deschanel, but it is perhaps taken to a new level and with a new audience.
I first saw a Zooey Deschanel in an Apple product commercial, and I noticed the face design that says, "You are looking at me" (or, "I am a thing that is looked at").
The film "Gravity" offers a movie-going experience. Yes, the visuals stun and inspire. But it's more than beauty that makes us submit. The story is simple but the action engrossing; and the protagonist is uncomplicated--a supple mirror in which we replace the image with ourselves. So we fret and ease along with her as the film creates the illusion of time alternately speeding up and then crawling; it does so with the sounds of breathing, of heartbeats, of blinking lights, watches, and faceless monitors that beep out the pace, switching from measured rhythms to urgent, pleading buzzes. And when we finally reach the moment when we can pause and consider all that just happened, we're left with a sense of wonder--not just of the vastness of the universe, but the resilience of the human spirit. Now, this human spirit stuff is a sort of hackneyed theme and an easy payoff for the writers but it works okay here.
