This is a post it was on my mind to make all the way back in March of 2019, following the death of Luke Perry at the tragically young age of 52, but it got placed on the back-burner on account of the fact that I couldn't locate an English-language upload of the ad in question. Three years later, and I've finally figured out where one was hiding, so let's proceed.
Dreamboat Luke Perry was best known for his work in such teen-orientated fare as Beverly Hills 90210 and Riverdale. He also made memorable guest appearances playing animated versions of himself in The Simpsons and Johnny Bravo. But if you were watching TV in Europe in 1997, you might also remember his as the valuable face associated with Pizza Hut's hot new product, The Sicilian, a pizza marketed on the virtues of its particular herb combination, and the presence of corners, although that particular virtue isn't touted until the end (what are the advantages of having a square pizza anyway? Easier to hold?). Somewhat unusually for a celebrity endorsement, Perry does not, himself, explicitly sell us on the pleasures of The Sicilian; in fact, he has no dialogue whatsoever. He is represented as an idealised dining companion, every 90s romantic's wildest fantasy, the punchline being that he ends up playing second fiddle to The Sicilian, here depicted as the kind of impossibly perfectly perfect pizza that should exist only in fantasy, much as the average person's prospects of ever dating a celebrity of Perry's magnitude could happen only in the very idlest of wool-gatherings. The ad, developed by Abbott Mead Vickers, follows a young woman who describes how her ideal date would play out - Luke Perry would appear at her door and accompany her to Pizza Hut, where they would order the exciting Sicilian, only for both objects of her girlish desire to collide in an explosive conflict. A love triangle develops between the protagonist, Perry and The Sicilian, prompting the protagonist to reassess where her loyalties lie and to eject Perry from her fantasy - or, rather, she assigns him a new role, one where he is unable to come between her and her Sicilian.
There is an implicit narrative, of sorts, underpinning the protagonist's charming flights of fancy; as the ad opens, we see her seated in a prosaic living room beside a man we might assume to be her actual partner, although this is not made explicit. We're shown just enough of this scenario to conclude that her dreams of Perry and The Sicilian represent the escapist fantasies of a woman bored out of her skull at the prospect of what we suppose to be an umpteenth evening on the couch. That she dreams of running away to something as mundane as a Pizza Hut feels almost comical within itself, which leads me into what I ultimately find most fascinating about this ad - how it succeeds in creating a sense of unreality from such a banal situation (the presence of Perry notwithstanding), which functions on a more immersive level than the protagonist's ability to change the details of her date with a snap of her fingers. That Perry himself remains entirely silent certainly helps to reinforce the sensation that he is, in spite of being right there in the flesh, somehow not real - he registers as only a surface representation of himself, an uncanny replica to be used and repurposed at the protagonist's whim.
The real driving force behind the character of the ad, though, would be its choice in low-key background music, which carries overtones of the mirage. I am, regrettably, unable to put a name to the composition in question (if it turns out to be something by Cocteau Twins, then my apologies in advance), but it has a distinctively Muzakian flavour, the kind of audio one would expect to hear whilst riding up a shopping mall escalator or following announcements on the weather channel. Muzak, which commonly answers to the derisive moniker of "elevator music", could be described as the soundtrack of corporate banality, the kind of music to which were not necessarily primed to listen, but which meets a supposed subconscious need. It is as inconspicuous as it is omnipresent. The music's close associations with consumerist culture have made it one of the building blocks of the vaporwave movement, which seeks to shine a spotlight on the raw underbelly of the sonic encounters we are ordinarily conditioned to ignore. The term "elevator music" regulates the form to its allotted role as music to occupy the backdrop of various functional scenarios, but also alludes to the manner in which it accompanies us through life's "in between" moments - transitory moments where we're shifting from Point A to B, and which, in themselves, seem to offer so little in the way of substance and consequence that they seem destined to evaporate from conscious memory. The function the music plays is in appearing to plaster over life's numerous voids, whilst shepherding us ever onward down our unending path of consumption (usually the cause of said voids), but in a manner so anodyne that this process is not designed to register. The overriding sensation of elevator music is one of uncanny reassurance, but also uneasy artificiality, its purpose being to effectively numb us to the vapidity of our surroundings. In the Pizza Hut ad, such music is used to imply a disconnection from reality, with the fusion of fantasy and consumerism here suggesting the overwhelming inescapability of corporate culture. Dreams can themselves be viewed as "in between" moments, fulfilling the same function as that elevator music in that they cover up the vapidity in between the portions of life that command our active engagement. Dreams, though, are assumed to be driven by personal agency, but here they are clearly serving the ends of the corporate. There is an undercurrent of irony in the implication that the protagonist evades the tedium of an inert existence dictated by the television set by disappearing into a television commercial.
There are two moments in the ad when the music does not feature and we are faced with a soundtrack of silence - at the opening of the ad, when the protagonist's fantasy has yet to be established, and during the punchline, to emphasise the abruptness of Perry's departure. Silence is equated with reality; a date with Luke Perry might be an out there prospect, but the ad ultimately posits it as less valuable than the readily obtainable Sicilian, which anybody can wander into a Hut and order. The protagonist finds empowerment in the rejection of the idle wool-gathering embodied by Perry, and in the embracing of concrete consumption, with the trio of woman seated behind the protagonist acting as a kind of subtle visual echo to her epiphany - notice how they suddenly all seem to be smiling in her direction when she figures out what she really wants. The theme of female solidarity is expanded on in the ad's sister spot, in which the protagonist fantasises about a dream night in where, in lieu of providing her with dining companionship, Perry (clad in black leather, no less) is delivering a Sicilian straight to her door. Again, she expels Perry from the scenario so that she can focus on the pizza, but here she seems less adverse to having to share The Sicilian - a group of friends appear in Perry's place and they gather around the pizza together. The ad can thus be seen as celebrating friendship, and a contentment with every day pleasures, so long as there's enough corners and oregano to go around. In the original ad...I suppose it also celebrates self-sufficiency. She pays her own way.
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