Art & Copy
Directed by Doug Pray
Runtime:

Did you know that up until the last moment, Wendy’s execs were begging to pull the “Where’s the beef?” commercial? That tidbit is included in Art & Copy, a new documentary about the advertising that has been trumped up in pop culture for the last 40 years. But the anecdote (and there dozens of them, coming fast and furious from witty, dazzling talking heads like George Lois and Hal Riney) stops there: just another funny story about suits not getting the creative side. Wendy’s eventually relented and the spot became a national craze. But what changed their minds?

That’s the problem with Art & Copy. Director Doug Pray, who previously chronicled legendary surfer Dr. Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz and his family in Surfwise, set out to make a documentary celebrating the men and women behind the images and catch phrases that have permeated pop culture for the last five decades—plus one very strange ongoing narrative thread with a third-generation billboard worker.

But while celebrating “Just Do It" and Riney’s emotionally compelling (but logic-defying) 1984 campaign ad for Ronald Reagan may be a worthy cause, almost no mention is made of what happened behind the scenes. Mary Wells and Phyllis K. Robinson, responsible for the “I Love NY” and “It Lets Me Be Me” Clairol commercials, respectively, are both interviewed at length, but no explanation is given for how both women managed to rise so far in the good ol' boy’s club that comprised the golden age of advertising. Wells eventually became the first woman to own and run an ad agency, but you’d barely know it from the film.

Pray is just content to let the amber glow of nostalgia infuse his film, playing classic commercials like “I Want My MTV” and the “Who Shot Aaron Burr?” milk spot. But by narrowing his focus to just the cream of the ad crop, Pray comes across as a Madison Avenue huckster himself, one who’s selling the public on the classiness of smart ads.

A few of the interviewees mutter about the trash that clutters billboards, but Pray primly prevents that “trash” from infiltrating his film. What ads they’re referring to remains unclear, but with the notable absence of Calvin Klein’s iconic jeans ads, one wonders if Pray and his golden age interviewees find that sex has no place in the hallowed world of advertising. Advertising has long been perceived as a mirror reflecting reality back to consumers as a wish-fulfillment exercise. In that sense, Art & Copy is a worthy addition to a time-honored tradition.