You're So Money

So, this thing called The Academy Awards. No huge surprises there, except Marion Cotillard’s win for Leading Actress. Her speech was endearingly incoherent and involved the words "Thank you life, thank you love” and a somewhat naïve exclamation of love for the city of Los Angeles, sort of.

But the best speech of the night goes to Le Mozart des Pickpockets director Philippe Pollet-Villard, who is French: “Thank you, thank you very much. I don't really speak English. I'm very bad student. I can say I'm very happy and I want to thank my producer Fabrice Goldstein and Antoine Rein and my wife Gaby and my son Sebastien. And merci beaucoups et puis a bientot pour un film plus grand. Merci. Au revoir.”

Of note, the JCPenney American Living commercials premiered during the Oscars, possibly being one of the few retailers to treat the broadcast as a refined Super Bowl. The commercials feature gorgeously idyllic scenes of family and love in New England autumn landscapes. What you don’t know, as Alison Krauss and Robert Plant sing a serene Americana song about leaves in red and gold, is that this is a JCPenney ad. It appears to be a Ralph Lauren commercial, and you expect to see teenagers dressed in outlandishly preppy pink polos and rugby shirts, sharing a first kiss on a swing facing a lake over which the sun is setting. It’s money, in its truest American form – a haughty turn of the nose to the nouveau riche and a tip of the hat to those whose descendants came with the Mayflower and settled in beachfront villages around Massachusetts and Cape Cod.

And it is. Money. And a Ralph Lauren creation.

Well, somehow the commercials seem to have made a large enough splash to those who are struggling to become the next nouveau riche. Moments after the Academy Awards went off-air and winners rushed into the press room to give more eloquent acceptance speeches, bloggers the country over were asking, “What’s the name of the song in that JCPenney American Living commercial?” (It’s “Killing The Blues” by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant.) “Where can I find the commercial?” (Here. There is, too, a third version of the commercial, featuring "Let's Dance" by Chris Montez, and a more youthful and less reverent look at the founding families of America.)

Just over six hours after the 80th Annual Academy Awards rolled up its red carpet, YouTube user “matousek1024” uploaded low-quality versions of the commercial for all of America – rich and poor – to enjoy. Several YouTube users were so desperate to spread the hope that they captured the commercial on video and posted their less-than-true-color versions. JCPenney may not make a buck off of the rich or the poor, but it has caught our attention, even if for a little while.



Close your eyes, and imagine that it’s not slushy February outside your window, that you are strangely European looking, though still blonde and still beautiful, that your last name is Endicott (see: Boston Brahmin), and you own an expansive plantation-like mansion in Hyannisport and think the scum of the earth gather in Provincetown. Yay for bringing back the good times and charging more for it than Abercrombie and Fitch does. Enjoy.