My Ever-So-Brief Brush With The Next Secretary of Labor.
Ihad hoped to get back to writing about happier things by now. But we seem to be in one of those pesky moments of history that keep unscrewing the lightbulb of hope, so here we go again.
Some years back I was working at a casting studio in Los Angeles. I stepped out to grab a cup of coffee, and found myself lost in a crowd of beautiful women. The hallway was filled with tall, leggy, large-busted actresses. They were lined up to the end of the hallway. Through the lobby. Out onto the street. A lot of them were wearing skimpy bikinis.
These weren’t the kids and moms I was expecting for the charming little holiday ad I was working on. It turns out the studio was also holding a casting session for a Carl’s Jr. ad. Maybe you’ve seen one. The basic formula is lots of pretty women, very little clothing, and a cheeseburger somewhere in the mix.
I’m as cynical as the next guy who spends his days cooking up advertising for the American public. I joked that the creative team in the casting room down the hall was having way more fun than I was. But there was something fundamentally disturbing about the whole thing. If you think the ads run by Carl’s Jr. are degrading to women, you don’t want to know what the casting call looks like.
I’d forgotten about it until a couple of days ago when I read that Andy Puzder, the brains behind the Carl’s Jr. boobs and burger ads, is the guy Donald Trump picked to be his Secretary of Labor. Being controversial might be a smart way to sell burgers. All you have to do is nail down one small segment of the market, and sometimes having the rest of the American public despise you helps sharpen the focus. It’s less helpful as a strategy for governing. Then again, Trump seems to be making his cabinet picks the same way God selected plagues to send down upon the people of Egypt. I’m not sure governing is the point.
Who knows, maybe Trump’s just looking for a good wingman for nights out in the First Limo.
What’s sad is that the choice of a Secretary of Labor who’s basically a sex joke is a punch in the gut to all the rustbelt workers who showed up at the polls to get Trump elected. These guys really are swimming against the tide of history. Fixing that is going to require more than a few Tweets and a handful of jobs in Indiana. If Trump had anything to offer these workers it would be a strong Secretary of Labor to stand as their champion. A person who comes to the job full of ideas for bringing the reward and dignity back to honest labor. Instead they get a guy who stands for cheap hamburgers and cheaper women.
