Father Kavanaugh has come to believe that the advertising that we see every day has come to, in essence, be us. These advertisings, he thinks, shape our cultural values. I think that Father Kavanaugh is right. In many cases we look at advertising and want to be like it. We want what the media says is good, and do not take the time to think about what is actually good. The media has become the guiding influence in our lives instead of our own judgment. Father Kavanaugh shows many examples of advertising in our world today, and I agree that it has become the image of what it means to be a person. You need all the things that you see on television to be able to fit into the culture we live in today. Everything that we see on TV today sets a standard for our culture to follow, and that is what Father Kavanaugh speaks about in his movie.

The merchants of cool are a great example of Father Kavanaugh's idea. These people have made a business out of finding things that teenagers will buy. They start trends, and profit from young people who want to be "cool". They spend their time searching through market data trying to find out what is the next big thing so that they could sell it for a profit. They try to sell popularity, which is something everybody in this our time wants. They are exactly what we need to try to get away from because they try to define what it means to live a happy life, and they only focus on the perceived goods instead of real goods.