#62 - Pirates and Public Relations

Pirates and Public Relations

6/23/05 (#62)

Aye matey, what is up with America's recent obsession with Pirates? You can't swing a cutlass these days without hitting some incarnation of the pirate mythology, be it pirate toys, pirate music bands, pirate paraphernalia, pirate children's books, pirate costumes----argh, it's driving me to the grog.

This is not a new phenomenon----while Johnny Depp was a charmingly cartoonish character in Pirates of the Caribbean, he is not the impetus for this new wave. (If Johnny Depp could single-handedly kick-start a trend, the '90s would have been filled with scissor-hand gloves and mob-informant outfits.) The Goonies were after the treasure of one-eyed Willie decades before, and Hollywood's willingness to bank on swashbuckling action dates almost as far as the industry itself, Errol Flynn making a star turn as Captain Blood as early as 1935. But lately, it has grown from cottage industry to corporate cash-cow.

When I was younger, pirates were a cult fascination, competing for space in the seasonal aisles at Kmart with dusty Halloween costumes such as Medieval Knight, Old West Gunfighter, and Robin Hood---on the sidewalks of my town, there were a dozen Supermans, soldiers, and even hobos for every candy-craving kid with an eye patch and a saber. In those days, the words "pirate" and "collection" never appeared in the same sentence, and if you'd passed adolescence, your only opportunity to wear the poofy pirate shirt was to join the Society for Creative Anachronisms. (A club that tries to assert that nerds existed during every era of human history.)

Now, pirate toys warrant their own section of the toy store---and can't be contained to that one section: Three different manufacturers are competing to sell you their $50 wooden pirate ship; Playmobil and Ryan's Room offer complete pirate environments, including hidden island outposts, buccaneer jails, and buried treasure play sets. Every book store in town offers a little kiosk or end cap in their children's section with a plethora of vaguely pirate-themed titles.

Then there are the pirate bands. While I envision that every pirate band must mumble, "please, just once, someone yell 'Freebird'" each time they have to play 36 verses of "What should we do with the drunken sailor", clearly it's a bigger industry than my sarcasm would suppose: There are pirate bands for every occasion ("Yar, let's raise our steins to the bride and groom!"), pirate bands for no occasion at all ("Argh, every day's a holiday when yer a pirate"), even an award-winning Pirate marching band. (I was unable to determine the parameters of the competition---were they a rogue pirate band that beat out other marching bands, or was it an actual pirate marching band competition?)(It would be a funny story if they won because they stole everyone else's instruments.)

September 19 is international "Talk Like a Pirate Day". Curious, I Googled "Pirate Lingo Glossary" and clicked on the first Pirate dictionary* that appeared---it had 14 entries. That's not a dictionary. I've seen longer recipes for meatloaf. In fact, take a look at this script:

"Aye buccaneer, hoist that jolly roger, grab your cutlass, and we'll board that galleon to plunder for loot."

This sentence single-handedly uses 42% of the pirate dictionary. If one sentence used 42% of the words in an actual dictionary (for instance, the Oxford English Dictionary), the sentence would be over 31,000 words long. (A mouthful, even by James Joyce standards.)

What amazes me about all of this pirate excitement is this: they're PIRATES! It's been deemed developmentally unwise (and politically incorrect) for kids to be given guns as toys, but dressing your little peanuts and pumpkins up as sea faring bandits who loot, plunder, steal, and butcher is an acceptable replacement? They were the mobsters of their epoch, yet I can't seem to locate any prohibition-era Bootlegger action figures ("oooo, if I can only find Bugs Moran, I'll have the whole St. Valentines day massacre set"); they robbed and murdered their victims for their own benefit and/or enjoyment, yet I can't go to the toy store and find a Bonnie and Clyde getaway car ("complete with Johnny-Law bullet holes"); they were parasites feeding illegally on a burgeoning industry, yet Powell's doesn't have a special display of picture books commemorating Enron and Worldcom executives. Where are the Ghengis Khan marching bands? Aren't their any good shanties about Cortez?

Somehow, the pirate has evaded the overreaching concerns of moral America, slipped by the radar of groups promoting non-violence for children, and managed to finagle a profitable career from a past built on debauchery and destruction. Maybe it's the colorful clothing, or perhaps I have underestimated the allure of an eye patch (it translated to big sales in an old Hathaway shirt campaign), but I am fascinated with our willingness to embrace the caricature without any concern for the motives or methods of the archetypes. The pirate has been rechristened as the role model for defiance, an anti-establishment hero who values freedom above all things--- not everyone's freedom, mind you, but at least their own. The pirate is the original "life coach", demonstrating for their non-volunteer clients that rules and laws are for the company-man, and that happiness comes from going after what you truly want---especially if what you want is someone else's money, someone else's boat, and an early retirement in the Bahamas. Pirates have the best spin doctors of any sub-culture in human history.

Of course, I have to be careful of just how high I climb on this particular high horse---Sage will be three soon, and that Plan Toys pirate ship (complete with cannon, plank, flying jolly roger and one-eyed captain) is more affordable than the Plan Toys Ferry, so I might have to do some spin doctoring of my own soon: "Plank? That's a diving board, honeychild. Eye patch? Well, let's just say, be careful where you're diving."

And the skull and crossbones? Easy: "These sailors are big fans of Lopez' debut album, Sage. Now let's find that Creed ship and put these cannons to good use."

* http://www.geocities.com/marciateach/piratevocab.htm

©2005 wpreagan