Time to Retire Product Placement as a Criticism

Somewhere along the way it became cool to point out that you noticed a certain company provided the phones for a movie.  It's somehow a knock that a film produced by Sony would have all the characters using Sony phones.

I think it's time to accept that, if we are going to see our childhood's on the big screen, the money is going to come from mutually beneficial deals that result in subtle to obvious product placement.  It's just part of the process now.  It's part of how the sausage is made and bringing it up doesn't serve as information that is elucidating.

Pointing out the make of the cars during a Captain America: Civil War scene that has the first appearance of Black Panther while he chases Bucky and is being chased by Captain America and Falcon is as insightful to me as pointing out that Chadwick Boseman didn't come up with everything he said in the movie on his own.  Yeah, I'm sure product placement made that spectacle possible just like a writer wrote Chadwick and everyone else's lines in the movie... because that's how movies are made! 

I know I'm in the minority.  I'm used to that.  However, I just can't get my head around the idea that product placement is an element of film making that actually makes or breaks a film in terms of quality.  Like, was the main problem with Power Rangers that a major plot point revolved around Krispy Kreme?  The fact that Krispy Kreme is where the ultimate showdown takes place can't possibly be the real intellectual issue you have with a movie where kids drive Dinocars and have super powers.

Is the problem with Transformer movies the fact that Chevrolet is front and center in shots like the one above?  As someone who gladly joins his mother at the cinema to see every one of these movies just so I can spend time with her, I have to say, if you can focus on something like that during these disorienting displays of metal on metal mayhem then cool.  But, you're missing a whole lot of issues with these movies if the only thing that you have to say after coming out of one of these movies is that you hated all the product placement.

Imagine what you love about your favourite film, whatever it may be, and does the lack of product placement ever come up as a reason why that movie means so much to you?  I could be wrong, but for most recent instances of product placement in a movie, they don't stop the story to sell you something.  

It may be a weird insert shot or camera angle to show off how refreshing Dr. Pepper looks but it's fairly innocuous if not a part of the story.

I know it seems like I'm trying to place commerce over art, but I'm not.  I'm just saying I love that I live in a world where If I don't like a movie like Batman v Superman, it's not so bad because I don't have to wait years for a movie like Captain America: Civil War.

If a thing like product placement makes a studio feel like they can venture away from characters I already know like Batman and Iron Man and give me two Guardians of the Galaxy movies then I have to say, the positives way outweigh the negatives of some people getting taken out of the moment by seeing a product they know from real life on screen.

-YG