These ads appeared roughly 15 years ago, and when you’ve done your (excessive, sorry [kind of]) homework for Tuesday, you’ll recognize the first voice. As we consider Whitman’s America, and circa 2010 America, and 2026 America, I invite you to analyze these videos. Is this a portrait of America WW would have recognized? embraced? rejected? Why? Would it matter to Whitman, or does it matter to you, that the poetry, and the Whitmanish slogan, were mobilized to sell jeans (by a massive company worth billions, founded by a German Jewish immigrant that began making jeans for working men during Whitman’s lifetime)? For that matter, is this an America YOU recognize? If the ads are trying to sell both jeans AND a vision of America, what do you make of that vision?
4 thoughts on “Walt Whitman, Idealism, and Capitalism Walk into a Bar”
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To be honest, I think Whitman might have been pretty pleased to see that his poems have enough of a legacy to be featured in an ad like this. Granted I think dramatic ads like this are a bit over the top (like I don’t believe if I wear those jeans I, too, will feel like I am in a Walt Whitman poem), but the brand Levi’s itself is a result of what I think Walt Whitman believed America to be capable of. So it’s almost a merging of two legacies.
No doubt the ad’s version of America is idealized, but it looks like a very nice America to me and preaches possibility the way Whitman does. I think the essences of the two are very similar in that regard.
Whitman would TOTALLY love knowing that his poems lasted long enough and had such a foundational effect on American culture that they’re being used so many years later to represent all things AMERICA. It makes me wonder if Emily Dickinson would be proud of her own legacy or if all the attention across history (and televised misrepresentations) would make her want to crawl into a hole.
However, I think I disagree that the Levi’s brand is a result of the same thing Whitman believed America to be capable of. Certainly it started off that way, but Levi’s isn’t for the working class anymore. They make really expensive jeans. America has gone so far into the land of Corporations, and I think anti-institution, free-thinking Whitman would hate, hate, hate that. I also wonder if he’d hate this advertisement for being the empty carcass that is propaganda rather than anything with actual artistic merit, but maybe I’m projecting my own feelings into it at this point.
Whitman would probably be excited that we have TV and immediately begin figuring out a way to get his face on it.
I think Whitman would’ve liked the idea of Levi’s especially in its early days—the modern Levi’s and fashion industry (and to go even broader, capitalism) would probably be met with scrutiny by him in terms of their exploitation and environmental destruction.
Is this the America I recognize? I don’t know. Watching these makes me feel sentimental but also a bit critical as I know this is just an idealized version of American imagery and values. This “vision” of America presented seems to be broad, contradicting, active, and dreaming of more—all of which are true. It’s a good ad I suppose (they’re beautiful and artistic), but it doesn’t make me wanna get Levi’s, you know?
I hate ads that try to sell me the “real” America. The CEO of Levi’s makes millions a year selling jeans for 100 bucks a pop… $100 is INSANE for pants! There’s a white t-shirt on the Levi’s website for THIRTY DOLLARS? I am aghast.
For me, I am very anti-advertisement, and I have a hard time allowing this video to stand on any artistic merit beyond something that is trying to sell me overpriced pants. Instead of being affected by Whitman’s words and voice, all I can think about while watching the video is the Monopoly man greedily laughing as he edits in frames of diverse working-class people frolicking through American landscapes. I think if he had the modern context behind it, Whitman would not be pleased either.