Are Television Commercials Art?

I went recently with a few friends (thanks again) to the most recent British Arrows awards. They’re an award show for the best advertisements on British television. Every year, they ship the films all the way overseas and bring them to The Walker Art Center, where they’re shown for about a month, several times some days. I don’t ever hear any of this about, say, the awards for British television shows. Much ado about advertising, I suppose.

What strikes me as oddest is that these are shown at the Walker Art Center, not some odd theater somewhere in the city. The presupposition of this arrangement- one that kept coming into my thoughts during the showing- was that these advertisements were art.

Could it be true? Are advertisements a form of art? My first response was no. The point of art is to express oneself. Advertisements don’t show what the artist is thinking, but only what the creator of the advertisement wants people to think.

This does raise some questions. For example, during the early days of classical music, all music was commissioned for religious services, by the church, for the church. It was, in a way, an advertisement for the church. But those who were writing for the church certainly felt strongly about religious ideals, and were certainly expressing something of themselves when they wrote Gregorian chant.

The adverts we saw were nothing like Gregorian chant. They exploited our emotions for profit and played to archetypes for laughs and connection.  Except, of course, that there were political nonprofit ads and public service announcements. There’s political-based art, isn’t there? In addition, some of the advertisements were really quite funny. Isn’t a comedy film a form of art? A satire, at least? Where does that line come in? Would we consider Dr. Strangelove “art” but not Mean Girls?

You could argue, then, that advertisements, as film, are art, but not good art, because they don’t reflect any emotions. But I enjoyed going to see the Arrow Award winners. Most of them were quite funny. (One of my favorites is at the bottom.) Is it possible that something can be art and be good but not be good art?

Perhaps art is, more than anything, a lens. The lesson of the Arrow Awards is that anything created can be looked at as art. Everyday objects, even the most functional, have an art and creativity in their creation. Look at the furniture wherever you are. Someone had to come up with aesthetically pleasing shapes for it. The computer you’re working on is probably either square and techy or attractively sleek. Someone had to come up with those designs as well. Even nonfiction writing has an artistic component to it. When people make things, they want them to be appreciated. Why not appreciate them?