Bryan Curtis: "Would Eustace Tilley shop at Target?" Read on.

Update: The Chicago Sun-Times makes its views on the subject pretty clear in the hed: Target, New Yorker Cross Line.

What do you think? I wonder if the magazine will do one of its rare letters pages for this one; I'm doubting it. I find the Target ads a little distractingly big and bright and, well, red, but I think people can tell the difference between advertising and editorial in this case, especially since Target has such an unmistakeable logo. I feel mildly concerned that this doesn't bother me more, and the pages should probably all be labeled "Advertisement," but I'm not particularly outraged. I guess the advertorial blur of my commodified-dissent upbringing has pretty well seeped into me, after all. If Target started putting text into those ads and that was ambiguous and quasi-editorial, then I'd raise the red (concentric-circled) flag. If any of you want to send in your views to be aired on Emdashes, I'll consider them.

Here's my shameless reproduction of the Times piece from last week, too.