Sub-plot of last week's Mad Men episode: Peggy and Pete cook up a scheme to build publicity for Sugarberry hams by hiring two broads to get in a fight over one in a store. The subsequent buzz results in a
new slogan: "Our hams are worth fighting for."
My biggest criticism of Snooki and her ham-glazed friends isn't about what they've (allegedly) done to our media culture, or their insult-by-example adherence to some notion of what it means to be "Italian," or the astounding vapidity of GTL as a lifestyle ethos.
What kills me is how shockingly unoriginal the whole thing is.
It's as if bimbettes with a day drunk on don't annoy beach patrons every day somewhere along the Shore. Or as if some of those dumb skanks don't then sassmouth the cops to the point that they get tossed into the back of the car. It's called Senior Week, people, and it's been wasting police resources at the Shore for decades, only those girls usually come away with it with a "walking ticket" court summons and a hangover. For the Snookis of this world, it's a career highlight.
Our response to it all -- round after round of phony shock and indignation, followed by hilariously unironic examinations of our collective cultural conscience -- are re-runs of a re-run at this point, "scandals" that once may have really revealed something about ourselves but are now just on endless repeat in syndication. Even the
"Free Snooki" T-shirt that magically appeared on the other cast member who went to fetch Snooki from the police station seemed like a cheap Boardwalk knockoff of a joke that was sort-of funny a decade ago.
