• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, August 9, 2010

Jason Bateman is that rare kind of unabashed actor who seems to have been in the Hollywood fabrication game all too long to take it seriously. Or at least that is the Hollywood pose that itself seems to have lent him a weird kind of celeb credibility. The cocreator of brandertainment house DumbDumb and maker of infamous Orbit video "The Prom Date," announced the other day via Twitter his company's next salvo of ickiness. "The new Orbit short from Dumbdumb is up at YouTube. I'd post the link but still dumb. Sorry. It's called The Dancer. Hope you like it." Bateman, the new sorta-celeb who is embracing online video doesn't know how to post a YouTube link to Twitter. How adorable.

The latest in Orbit's series of "Dirty Shorts" is another example of the advertising of discomfort. The gum maker's "dirty mouth" theme is a creative setup for a range of daring scenarios in which a stick of gum is needed to clean up a 'dirty mouth.' In this case it is the oafish catcalling of middle-class males in a strip club that need a rinse. The twist (or first twist) is that Jason Bateman is the stripper. In addition to the usual pole dance, Bateman serves up sticks of gum to the foul-mouthed wolves as some fall for the cross-dressed stripper. The one-joke bit would wear quickly if not for a nice cast of familiar "I know that face from somewhere" character actors composing the crowd. They follow Bateman out of the bar until the final reveal when he shows his true identity and they all share a back-slapping laugh.

Bateman is trading effectively on a creepy disingenuousness that he played especially well in Juno, but it has been with his public persona all along. He looks like the clean cut, straight-laced white bread dad but has a dark ironic remove from his own character that always makes you doubt his sincerity at every turn. Will Ferrell carries the same slightly flat note to everything he does -- always telegraphing to the viewer that he is not really playing this straight.

Like the first in this series from Bateman and partner Will Arnett, the brandertainment from these guys just feels more uncomfortable and overextended than funny or creative. In the attention economy, simply standing out appears to be enough. Whether any larger messages or affinities attach themselves to the brands in these viral escapades seems to be an afterthought? Perhaps succeeding at getting our attention in a cluttered marketing environment has itself become a brand value. We're all Mad Men now, analyzing and rewarding the effectiveness of sales techniques.