On the surface, Art & Copy is a tribute to legendary creative minds in advertising, and the process through which they made their most iconic ads. From taglines that became pop touchstones like “Just Do It” and “Got Milk?” to how Mac, Budweiser and Volkswagon went beyond their product and became “lifestyle brands,” the charismatic advertisers share how it happened from their point of view, which smacks of self-mythologizing. Not only does the director, Doug Pray, appear to completely buy the mythology presented, but when the film raises moral and ethical questions about advertising, I’m not sure he realizes the questions are even there.

The documentary follows a simple structure. An advertising legend (Hal Riney, George Lois, Dan Wieden, David Kennedy, Mary Wells, Rich Silverstein, Jeff Goodby, Lee Clow among others) tells a story or expounds on creativity. Between each story is a meditative sequence that harkens back to Koyaanisqatsi: billboard scaffolding, a city highway, a satellite being constructed –the real concrete and steel lattice work advertising travels to get to us. Usually, over these images a disturbing statistic pops up like, “We receive 5,000 advertising messages a day.” Often, the images include workaday drones putting up billboards or sitting at banks of computers monitoring satellites. Then there’s a statistic revealing how absurd post-modern life has gotten like,  “Children receive a zillion advertisements before they’re potty trained.” Paradoxically, these statistics are always followed by another ad executive sitting in an architectural masterpiece of a workspace talking about the power of creativity and how they harnessed it to the betterment of the world.

After a while, it becomes apparent that Pray’s desolate shots of satellites, billboards, highways and cables with the creepy statistics superimposed continually beg a question that won’t be answered: And do you, rebel/artist/advertising billionaire, feel complicit in creating this consumer madness? This massive spider web where we’re sold stuff from the time we open our eyes to the time we close them?

Although the question is not so subtly raised, it is obviously averted. In defense of the film, there is an insinuation that bad advertising has polluted the world and degraded consumers, but good advertising–the kind we’re talking about here–is basically art. Case in point: Nike’s Just Do It.

Nike wanted to sell sporting equipment that assists in a healthy lifestyle. Altruism, capitalism and creative genius align to make Just Do It. All of the sudden, people aren’t just buying Nike, they’re leaving abusive relationships, going back to school, changing jobs because they decided to “Just Do It.” Now, would these people have gone on to just do it–whatever it is–without Nike’s ad? Probably. Did Nike make billions by becoming an aspiration for a lifestyle rather than a pair of shoes that wasn’t significantly better than their competition? Definitely. Is the world a better place because Nike was able make shoes represent the life you want instead of the life you have? Well, that’s a question this documentary continually steps up to ask, then avoids.

Unlike Art & Copy, Beautiful Losers is a doc I reviewed last year wherein the artists actually ask themselves whether using their creativity to sell stuff is moral. In fact, wrestling with the question is part of their process of going from juvenile artist/rebels to grown ups. It’s troubling that in Art & Copy the altar of the artist/rebel has become so sacred that when questions about the ethics of one’s work become unavoidable, the worshippers simply won’t acknowledge them. These advertisers don’t ask hard questions about what they’ve created. It’s an elephant in the room which has been ignored for so long, that even though it seemed to be standing in the very editing room for this documentary, nobody acknowledged it.