Mass communications scholars assert consumers and advertisers are engaged in a never-ending struggle for attention and money. Consumers combat the relentless assault of ads by constructing defenses to protect themselves from unnecessary or even disturbing information. Advertisers’ livelihoods depend on toppling or circumventing those defenses, and they use all sorts of stealth attacks to accomplish that goal.

I just want to explain what’s really going on in the latest “movie” playing at the Amazon.com Theater.

Yes, Amazon.com, that amazing emporium of stuff — books, compact discs, software, watches, musical instruments, and whatever else you think you want — now has a “theater.” You don’t have to pay a cent to watch. Just let your defenses down for the five minutes it takes to see the short feature, which the generous owners of Amazon.com call a “free gift” to its customers.

I beg to disagree. I’ve never paid to receive a gift in my life, so I’m immediately suspicious when a store offers me a “free” gift. Usually that complimentary present is an enticement, a way to get me into the shop so I’ll buy something. So let’s be honest. This film isn’t a gift — it’s not even a film. It’s a commercial starring products that you can purchase at Amazon.com.

Don’t know what the products are? You can wait for the credits; they are listed with hyperlinks to another Amazon page where you can buy them. Can’t wait for even five minutes? Click the credits button. They will roll. You don’t have to be told outright to figure out what’s for sale.  

Watch “Agent Orange,” the second of five movies. Notice how the camera lingers on the orange girl’s watch. See how the cinematographer just happens to build the shot around male actor’s orange tennis shoes.

Notice I didn’t say leading man. There is no reason to wait until the end of the movie to buy the Orange Boy’s shades, or the Orange Girl’s boots. Click another button and you can link to the product on the Amazon.com site.

In these movies, the products are the stars and the actors are the props. The fact that a few live humans get top billing doesn’t prove otherwise; it’s just a ploy to get past one of those filters that we weary consumers use to separate wheat from chaff. Or commercials we want to watch from ones we don’t.

So why am I checking the schedule to see when the next movie will show? Because they are great little flicks.

The first one, “Portrait,” was a sophisticated, witty adaptation of the “Picture of Dorian Gray.” I’d give it two thumbs up. I couldn’t really get into the avant-garde camera angles in “Agent Orange,” so the piece gets one thumb up and one down. But that’s coming from a woman who still has oatmeal colored carpet in her living room. Maybe the flick was too bright for my taste.

Still, I stayed and watched until the end, and that is all the advertisers want me to do. Even though I haven’t bought anything, there are fewer and fewer shopping days until Christmas. I was intrigued enough by the movies to spend a couple of hours writing about them, and a lot longer thinking about them.

So who won this battle?  Mass communications scholars also predict that advertisers will become so adept at sneaking through consumers’ barricades, anything can become a potential commercial.

I think the researchers haven’t gone far enough. The future is here; everything already is a potential commercial. Even columns like this.

Afi-Odelia E. Scruggs