Dan Griesenauer Jr. Theology/Faith 12 - 03 - 06The Merchants of Cool Throughout his movie, Fr. Kavanaugh shows why he is worried that advertising and media is shaping our values, humanities, and means of acquiring happiness. He believes that people are letting advertising control their lives, and if we continue to let this happen, we will lose sight of the true meaning of life and what is morally correct. He said that society was trying to teach us that all the values that should only be found in other people can just as easily, if not more easily, be found in their products. Companies understand that they need new and innovative ways to sell their products, so they decide to corrupt what is morally correct. They exploit people’s desire for love, pride, hope, family, and friends by saying that what they are selling will bring them what they want so badly. Fr. Kavanaugh believes that if these methods of selling products aren’t replaced with something more morally healthy, we will lose sight of what God intended us to be, people who love each other and God above the idols of a materialistic society. These idols will cloud our judgment and we will drift farther and farther from God. “The Merchants of Cool” again shows how much the media has shaped our views throughout life. The media is telling us that the meaning to our life is to buy all the items that they say can make us happy so we can mask the real problems that we may have. They stress immediate gratification which leads to a generation that is putting of spiritual goods because they never see anything good right away. Because many people begin to lose sight of a reason to be kind to others, they begin to make worse moral decisions. People begin to make decisions that are only good for themselves and often harm other people along the way. Society teaches them that it is ok to put someone else down, as long as it helps you. Sometimes people are so far from good morals that they make decisions that aren’t even good for themselves. They are so caught up in being cool, that they injure themselves and those they know while they think they’re becoming better. This also shows how people are straying from reason. They make decisions based on what is popular instead of using reason and rational thought, which leads them to making wrong and often unhealthy choices. I believe that “The Merchants of Cool” does support what Kavanaugh said twenty years ago. It shows that advertisements and corporations are still controlling how a large majority of the population thinks, especially teenagers. They are still proving people with an identity and a form of self-expression that many people think they can’t acquire from inside themselves. They are becoming so good at their advertising skills, and many people today are completely surrounded by the media, that they don’t even notice as they are becoming the product of some major company’s design.