Watched an interesting DVD this week called The Joneses, directed by Derrick Borte, 2009 the premise is:
A seemingly perfect family moves into a suburban neighborhood, but when it comes to the truth as to why they’re living there, they don’t exactly come clean with their neighbors.
In fact the family are fake and are sales people who sell their products unknowingly to the neighbors. I really liked the concept of this film although the tone was a bit confused neither being funny or serious enough, ending somewhere middle of the road. The mock family sells products to their target market with the dad excelling by selling expensive products such as the latest car and lawnmower. The neighbors are swept off their feet by the way the Joneses look, act and live the ultimate lifestyle. The film appears to end when the next-door neighbor commits suicide after getting in so much debt from constantly buying products. He ends his life by drowning himself in the pool, tied to the lawnmower. I know this film is an exaggerated take on consumerism although it does make me worry how far people will go to have the latest gadget and peoples perceptions of the ‘ideal’ lifestyle.
At my paid work at the bag shop, my manager asked me if I knew any artists. Well of course I did and in fact I am an artist, which I stated. Of course my manager knows this although wanted me to ask someone else to help with a store promotion, design a bag competition. I do feel sometimes that my creative skills are overlooked at work and couldn’t understand why they didn’t just ask me to do it. I was not asked because they did not want to pay someone to come in and thought it may be of interest for an artist to do it for their portfolio. When my manager mentioned this to me I did say that all the artists I know would expect to be paid. This comment did upset me a little bit as I still feel that some people think art, is a bit of a hobby and that artists will be grateful for any scraps of work. This is not a commission, or an artwork it is a promotion for a branded store, which should be paid for. I will get to do it and get paid my usual hourly rate, so one up for the artists.
