Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Books Is Stephen King on the General Mills Payroll?
Posted by Henry Stewart on Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 4:25 PM
- Where'd you get the money for that motorcycle?
Well, if you want to call Stephen King “literature”.
Last week, the New Yorker published a new story by King (who has contributed at least ten stories and personal essays to the magazine in the last twenty years) to coincide with the release of his latest 1,000-page novel, Under the Dome. The roughly 3,000-word story, “Premium Harmony,” contains seven references to Bugles, General Mills’ saturated fat-rich corn chips.
The snack, in fact, becomes the defining characteristic of a minor character, an overweight woman who lingers around the scene of a heart attack. Her Homeric Kingian epithet is “the woman with the Bugles”.
Product placement is tricky to judge. As Americans, we occupy a culture saturated with logos and brand names, some of which become a part of our lives to the point that they can help to define who we are. For instance, King’s story begins with several references to Wal-Mart: the characters are on their way there, they discuss its lower prices, and the protagonist expounds on the superstore’s effect on the local economy.
But in many if not most parts of America, Wal-Mart does dominate local commerce, and King uses these references to help the reader situate the characters and understand better the place they inhabit.
Not every item mentioned in the story has a brand name. The store the characters stop at is a “Quik-Pik,” not a 7-11. The main character mentions he drank a “cream soda,” not an A&W. He smokes “Premium Harmony” cigarettes. King, however, also name drops a few other snack foods—Twinkies, Little Debbies, Hostess Sno Balls, Ho Hos—but, in calling out their names only once or twice, you could argue that he adds flavor to the story through specificity. At least, I’m willing to buy that for argument’s sake. (Though "Hostess" Sno Balls seems redundant to the point of suspicious, like saying you manipulated a jpeg using Adobe Photoshop.)
But seven references to Bugles? If the point is just to drive home the fact that she’s fat, she could just be holding a bag of good ol' potato chips.
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