Is It Wrong to Glorify Debt on the Big Screen?

Touchstone Pictures’ film version of Sophie Kinsella’s “Confessions of a Shopaholic” will hit theaters Feb. 14, months after the American love for buying things we can’t afford officially brought the world economy to its knees. Just today, the Conference Board announced that consumer confidence is the worst it’s ever been, taking a 23.4-point drop from September.

In Ad Age this week, Claude Brodesser-Akner wonders whether a Valentine to consumer excess – in which the heroine’s retail obsession runs her into $9,400 in credit card debt – is poorly timed. Instead of raking in the marketing dough from product placements, studio execs are allegedly wondering whether to rewrite the story or shelve it.

“I would play up the cartoon-y nature of it,” one anonymous marketing exec said, suggesting that the trials of Becky Bloomwood, played by Ila Fisher, be presented as a “fairy-tale version of life.”

The film is full of brand references, but Ad Age reports that so far, none of the companies referenced in the script have signed integration deals or crafted promotional tie-ins.  Upscale department store Henri Bendel, owned by Limited Brands, “would love to tie in,” according to a spokeswoman, but hasn’t heard from Disney. Todd Oldham, Zac Posen, Prada and other brands have been spotted in promo materials.

Stanley Weiser, who wrote the screenplay for “Wall Street” – which summed up the 1980s with the line, “Greed is good” — asked “How can you make a comedy about a shopaholic when the economy is in dire straits? I find it kind of obscene, frankly.”

He should know – 20th Century Fox is apparently working with another writer on a sequel to the tale of Gordon Gecko’s misdeeds.