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| Cheese Nation No More | |||||||
| The tackiest, schlockiest, retailer in the county could not survive. Now, that’s cause for celebration | |||||||
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| Jan. 28 — Maybe there is hope for America yet. You might find this hard to believe, but I came to this conclusion in the wake of both the Enron-Arthur Andersen disaster and, more important, last week’s announcement that Kmart had declared bankruptcy. |
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| HOW COULD THESE seemingly unrelated economic catastrophes—one a merger of the most absurd element of the New Economy (Internet oil trading?) and the most venerable element of the old (generous campaign contributions), the other the death of the nation’s third-largest retailer—induce such optimism? In the case of Enron, you have to be gratified that prisons throughout Texas are already making space for company executives and their “accountants.” Meanwhile, it seems that members of Congress—even though the majority got contributions from Enron or Arthur Andersen—may be finally ready to back some campaign-finance reform. With Kmart, my excitement is related more to style than substance. Somehow, even in the tackiest, schlockiest, cheesiest country on earth, the tackiest, schlockiest, cheesiest retailer could not survive. That’s cause for celebration. |
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In the case of Enron, you have to be gratified that prisons throughout Texas are already making space for company executives and their “accountants.”
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Perhaps you reject my analysis and disagree that American consumers are tacky, schlocky and cheesy. That’s your choice, of course. But how do you explain these facts about yourself and your countrymen: 1. Some of us eat a frozen-food product called Hot Pockets, which is basically a slice of pizza miniaturized into a tiny rectangular egg roll that is marketed to people who find it too onerous to watch TV and eat a regular slice of pizza at the same time. 2. We invented the velour sweatsuit. 3. Most of the nation’s preteens are taught sex-ed by a 20-year-old singer who dresses like a prostitute yet claims she is a virgin. 4. Have you ever seen how men at a baseball or football game behave when a woman in a snug T shirt is displayed on the scoreboard? 5. Lawn ornaments? 6. Miss Teen USA? 7. When you order a pizza from Domino’s, they throw in an order of “Cheesy Bread,” which, I hate to burst your bubble, is just pizza dough and pizza cheese without the pizza sauce. Need I go on? Yes, we’re tacky people. But, apparently, we’re self-hating tacky people: We couldn’t even keep Kmart in business. I found this so incredible that I immediately set off on a fact-finding tour of my local Kmart. This may not sound like a big deal, but Kmart didn’t open a store in New York City until just a few years ago. While the rest of the country was able to take advantage of Blue Light specials and buy industrial-sized tubs of I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter, Manhattan was effectively a Kmart-free zone. I emerged from the other side of the revolving door and realized that I had never actually been inside a Kmart store before. Looking around, I knew immediately that I was not in Manhattan anymore (but maybe I was in Manhattan, Kansas). There were rack after rack of American-flag sweatshirts, glass cases of the same kind of cheap yellow gold costume jewelry that I used to buy at the drugstore for my mom on Mother’s Day, and a section devoted to “fitness” that featured a type of plastic abdominal muscle machine that markets itself proudly as the same model that you have “seen on TV.” Upstairs, I discovered that Kmart had also branched off into the always-tough restaurant business. The Kmart Café did have a nice atmosphere—thanks to big windows that looked out over historic Cooper Square—but the menu featured prefabricated pound cake, frozen chicken patties and a grilled-cheese-and-Campbell’s-soup combo for $2.99. OK, I can understand going to a luncheonette for a burger and fries. But a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of Campbell’s soup? That was the first meal my mother let me make by myself when I was 8! |
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My fact-finding tour made me wonder why the Newspaper Association of America named Kmart its retailer of the year last Monday, just one day before Kmart announced its bankruptcy. (On Wednesday, the Newspaper Association of America issued a press release that consisted of a single word: “Oops.”) Digging deeper into Kmart’s woes, I discovered that the retailer’s only bright spot was the strong performance of its Martha Stewart Everyday line of sheets, towels and kitchenware. Martha alone generated $1.5 billion in sales for Kmart last year. (Clearly, if Kmart wants to save itself, it has to play out the hand its been dealt and rename itself Kmartha.) As Martha might say, this is a “good thing.” After all, Martha Stewart’s products are the antithesis of tacky. In fact, they’re uniquely stylish, tasteful, functional and, even rarer in America, high quality. It brought to mind yet another reason why Kmart failed: While one of its competitors, Wal-Mart, stole business away with even better prices for the same garbage, another competitor, Target, stole business away by making mundane products from tea kettles to cordless phones increasingly chic and smart. So even as there’s hope for Americans to overcome their tacky roots, there’s no hope for Kmart. According to USA Today, rather than reinvent itself with Martha leading the way, Kmart is maneuvering to restock its depleted shelves with the same old schlock. “By the time the Super Bowl weekend comes around,” said retail consultant Cynthia Cohen, “the soda and chips will be back in Kmart.” I guess I should have known. Gersh Kuntzman is also a columnist for The New York Post. His website is at http://www.gersh.tv © 2002 Newsweek, Inc. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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