by
Studs Terkel
View all notes
They’re aware that they’re talking about little bears capering around a cereal box and they’re arguing which way the bears should go. It’s a silly thing for adults to be doing. At the same time, they’re aware the client’s going to spend a million dollars on television time to run this commercial. Millions of dollars went into these little bears, so that gave them an importance of their own. That commercial, if successful, can double salaries. It’s serious, yet it isn’t. This kind of split is in everybody’s mind. Especially the older generation in advertising, people like me.
They’re all very similar. That raises the question: How important is advertising? Is there a justification for it? It’s a question people are asking all over the country. I myself am puzzled by it. There’s a big change going on right now. The rules are becoming more stringent. In another five years you’ll just have a lawyer up there. He’ll say, “This is our product. It’s not much different from any other product. It comes in a nice box, no nicer than anybody else’s. It’ll get your clothes pretty clean, but so will the others. Try it because we’re nice people, not that the other company isn’t nice.”
I used to think to myself, This is not a life. A man ought to be something more important, ought to be a doctor or a lawyer or something that does something for other people. To be an actor is to be a selfish person. It’s a matter of ego, I think. Many actors make the mistake of thinking this is life. I have in recent years found my work somewhat meaningful. So many people have stopped me on the street and said, “I can’t tell you how much I enjoy what you’ve done.” If, for a moment or two, he can turn on his TV set and see you in a show or a commercial and it makes him a little happier—I think that’s important.
This whole business has fallen absolutely into disuse in the past ten years. I know of no young man who’s gone into it. To them, it’s demeaning. I once asked my son to help me. His wife came over and told me she didn’t want her husband to help me exploit people. She believes I exploit people. Of course, she believes anybody who makes a profit exploits people. So you ask, “What is not exploitation? One percent? Two percent? General Motors?” I don’t feel I’m an exploiter. I’m a capitalist. I believe capitalism is the greatest economic system there is.
he's a debt collector lol
What really did it for me was one call I made. I went through the routine. The guy listened patiently and he said, “I really would like to help.” He was blind himself! That really got me—the tone of his voice. I could just tell he was a good person. He was willing to help even if he couldn’t read the paper. He was poor, I’m sure of that. It was the worst ghetto area. I apologized and thanked him. That’s when I left for the ladies’ room. I was nauseous. Here I was sitting here telling him a bunch of lies and he was poor and blind and willing to help. Taking his money.
I got sick in the stomach. I prayed a lot as I stayed there in the restroom. I said, “Dear God, there must be something better for me. I never harmed anyone in my life, dear Lord.” I went back to the phone room and I just sat there. I didn’t make any calls. The supervisor called me out and wanted to know why I was sitting there. I told him I wasn’t feeling good, and I went home.
I have a daughter in college. If she goes through to June, she’ll have her master’s degree. She’s in medicine. For her, it’ll be either teaching or research. As she teaches, she can work for her doctorate. She’s so far ahead of me, I couldn’t . . .
I don’t look down on my job in any way. I couldn’t say I despise myself for doing it. I feel better at it than I did at the office. I’m more free. And, yeah—it’s meaningful to society. (Laughs.)
“I was a Pullman porter for God knows how many years. That’s why I got into this so easily. When I was first employed, the porter status was very low. Everybody called him George. We got together and got a placard printed with our name on it and posted it on each end of the car: Car served by Louis M. Hayward. (Chuckles softly.) So we could politely refer everybody to this. When I first went on the road, the porter was the first accused of anything: wallet missing—the porter got it. (Dry chuckle.) A lot of them went on pensions. A pretty good pension—from a black man’s standard. A white man might not think it’s so hot. Others have jobs in banks—as messengers.”
The job makes those who aren’t really bad bigots worse after a while. You could take a tender white boy, give him a badge and a gun, and man! he becomes George Wallace over night. You have to change the rationale by which they work. We must have a system where they get points for helping people rather than hurting them.
You can take the worst bigot in the world, and if he works in a steel mill, he can’t take it out on anything but a piece of steel. If these white guys show they can’t work with black folks, put ‘em in an auto pound. Let ’em guard the lake, put ‘em on factory detail. Don’t take their job away from ’em. They gotta eat, they gotta feed their families.
You got some guys that are uptight, and they’re not sociable. It’s too rough. You pretty much stay to yourself. You get involved with yourself. You dream, you think of things you’ve done. I drift back continuously to when I was a kid and what me and my brothers did. The things you love most are the things you drift back into.
Lots of times I worked from the time I started to the time of the break and I never realized I had even worked. When you dream, you reduce the chances of friction with the foreman or with the next guy.
It don’t stop. It just goes and goes and goes. I bet there’s men who have lived and died out there, never seen the end of that line. And they never will—because it’s endless. It’s like a serpent. It’s just all body, no tail. It can do things to you . . . (Laughs.)
I don’t understand how come more guys don’t flip. Because you’re nothing more than a machine when you hit this type of thing. They give better care to that machine than they will to you. They’ll have more respect, give more attention to that machine. And you know this. Somehow you get the feeling that the machine is better than you are. (Laughs.)
You really begin to wonder. What price do they put on me? Look at the price they put on the machine. If that machine breaks down, there’s somebody out there to fix it right away. If I break down, I’m just pushed over to the other side till another man takes my place. The only thing they have on their mind is to keep that line running.