About ten years ago, Levi’s released a commercial under their “Go Forth” campaign. The commercial consists of many ruggedly beautiful and pristinely disheveled jean-clad youths running about doing various interesting things. Presumably, you will get to do that too if you buy Levi’s. There’s a bonfire, some meadows, a group of people hoisting a flag, and the occasional romantic interlude. Light music and a few nature noises are put in the back-burner, outshined by the main focus of the commercial and the controversy that later surrounded it: the voiceover reciting part of Walt Whitman’s poem, “Pioneers! O Pioneers!”
In honor of national poetry month, I thought I’d entertain myself and you, by focusing on this intersection of media and writing.
The commercial is thrilling. It’s exciting in a low-key way. You can see yourself leading some sort of purposeless revolution with your friends in the heat of the beach, and with every drum beat and every banging of a stick against railings, you believe yourself to be a pioneer. The commercial is highly effective. I first saw it years ago in a setting where we were looking at the use of Whitman’s poetry. We analyzed it in part to determine whether it was right to put a literary giant’s words in a commercial for jeans and also to see how Whitman’s writing changed the composition of the commercial. Yes, the visuals with epic music and a lower quality version of the same Whitman-esque ideas would have probably met the same goals. But using Whitman’s language, Whitman’s so particular sense of voice, takes the Levi’s advertisement to another level.
“Come, my tan faced children,” says Whitman. “Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;/Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes? Pioneers! O pioneers!”
This is Whitman’s aesthetic, if you know the poet well. Dirty and wild, fierce and free, the romantic spirit of pioneer is Whitman’s calling card.
“For we cannot tarry here,” he says. “We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,/We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O Pioneers!”
In his poetry, Whitman continuously calls for a revolution. He calls for immersion in not just nature, but in the human race itself. He asks of us to fully embrace our humanity, to revel in the dirt of ourselves, to bear the brunt of danger. And personally, I think he would be totally down with the Levi’s commercial. There are some questions of capitalism and feeding into the establishment, along with the fact that very few of us can look like or live the life that Levi’s models do. Regardless, Walt was hip. Walt was trendy. And the advertisement is fun and adventurous. I look at it not as something trying to sell me jeans, but as something trying to celebrate the spirit of having spirit. Even in with its faults, it adequately captures the feeling of the poem, which really is:
Go Forth.
Image credits: poetryoutloud, jeffluker.com