[Stephen Frazier, Cnn Anchor:] A clip from "The Merchants of Cool," and now to join us from New York to talk a little bit more about it is Barak Goodman, producer and director of "Merchants of Cool." Mr. Goodman, thanks for joining us.
[Barak Goodman, Producer, "merchants Of Cool":] Thanks for having me.
[Frazier:] The germ of this idea, we understand, actually come to you during your production of "The Lost Children of Rockdale County." How so?
[Goodman:] That's right. We spent a lot of time with the kids in suburban Atlanta and we found that to a greater extent than perhaps ever, certainly to a surprising extent for us, these kids had a very intense relationship with pop culture, a relationship that excluded in many ways other kinds of influences, even their own parents. And so we wanted to investigate the other side of the camera, those people who were creating media for kids to consumer.
[Frazier:] Is this the first generation that's been marketed to directly by pop culture without the filtering effects of parents or teachers or church, other influences like that?
[Goodman:] Yes, I think that's true. I think in previous generations, while of course marketers still very much wanted profit, they had a healthy respect for parents. They didn't want to upset parents. And so they tempered what they did with that in mind. I think for the first time ever, marketers recognize that teenagers control their own purse strings, that they have the power, the means to be consumers themselves, and so that filtering is gone, and marketers are really addressing teenagers directly.
[Frazier:] Well, that's been tried for a long time. Why is the filtering gone? That's not just a marketing issue, that's a larger sociological phenomenon, isn't it?
[Goodman:] There's no question that's a larger sociological issue, but these things are very interwoven. The point that we try to make in the show is that as marketers do address teenagers directly, they have the effect of further kind of distancing kids from other kinds of influence. They become the lens into which kids watch their own lives in a sense, and in some ways emulate what they see. So, you have this kind of feedback loop that happens between kids and the media in which other possible influences are kind of driven off and there is a kind of direct line, pipeline between kids and producers of culture.
[Frazier:] While you've been speaking, we've been showing some clips from the new program. Both of your comments remind me of the prior program, "The Lost Children of Rockdale County." I have to compliment you for incredible access to those young people and their frankness in talking to you. But one of the things that came away that struck me about that program was the absence of parents and did you artificially create that? Did you exclude them from your program?
[Goodman:] No, absolutely not. Certainly, in that program we sought parents out and what we found in that situation is that the parents are fighting a battle with popular culture in many cases, and finding themselves on the losing end of that battle. And so that's what prompted us to want to do this show, and in this show we focus not so much on kids and their families, but on the people who make popular culture and what drives them and what interest them and it was a very interesting look.
[Frazier:] It has to be greed driving them. You mentioned purse strings, these are the biggest purses that teenagers have ever controlled.
[Goodman:] No question, this generation has more money to spend, more ability to spend it freely than any generation in history and that has made them, naturally, the focus of the largest corporations on Earth.
[Frazier:] And when you say the focus, you mean the focus of a lot of market research into what they like or what they might like, because these are creating desire, not just reflecting, is that right?
[Goodman:] That's interesting, yes. What you find what you hear from marketers all the time is that this generation can't be fooled, that they are savvy to marketing, and so the approach that most marketers take is to try to understand the kids, try to learn about their lives, try to kind of get down on their level and really understand them. Ironically, though, when you watch what marketers produce for kids, it has very little to do with their real lives. It's not nuanced like real life is. Instead, it's kind of boiled down to its crudest, most elemental level. And then...
[Frazier:] Boiled down to a lot of sex, we've been showing pictures that...
[Goodman:] ... model to which kids aspire. So again, you get this sort of self-fulfilling quality.
[Frazier:] As you've been talking, we've been showing some of the clips of what they use to market, and you just said they boil it down to the crudest model. It looks like they just boil it down to a lot of sex.
[Goodman:] Well, we actually kind of put names to the stereotypes that the media tends to put forward. For boys, we call him the mook, and he tends to be loud, obnoxious, crude, in your face. For girls, we call her the mid-riff, and she is a confection that is basically sexualized, prematurely adult, and these are the lures that the media uses to bring teens in. Obviously, there are exceptions to this, but these tend to be the creations the media uses to attract consumers.
[Frazier:] Mooks and mid-riffs. Promises to be fascinating. Barak Goodman, thank you for joining us tonight. We'll look forward to the airing of your broadcast. "Merchant of Cool" airs on PBS Tuesday night as part of the series "Frontline." You can check your local listings for details.
[Goodman:] Thanks very much.