Monopoly gets face-lift as reflection of new era

Board game company Hasbro recently announced that their little piece of American heritage called Monopoly is getting a makeover so that it reflects modern, rather than Depression-era, times.

Aside from changing the well-dressed gentleman on all the cards from "Rich Uncle Pennybags" to "Mr. Monopoly" and all the railroads to famous airports, the company is replacing many of the game pieces. Previously icons of American childhood, the pieces are re-imagined as corporate icons, such as a box of McDonalds fries, a New Balance running shoe, and a cup of Starbucks coffee.

Some may say this is commercialization of a classic American game, which it probably is, but if they want to reflect modern American times, turning tradition into shameless advertising is a damn good effort.

Anyone who's visited Myrtle Beach knows that the tradition of high school students going to the beach and drinking heavily without telling their parents is greeted with shameless advertising in the form of airplane banners.

Even rebellion in popular music, which has been a constant since the 50s, has gone corporate. Rap music, which America once thought would turn its kids into crack-smoking, ho-slapping thugs with no sense of melody, has gone shamelessly corporate.

One popular rapper named Timbaland, actually used the brand name of a shoe for his stage name.

Flava Flav, a member of the rap group Public Enemy who are known for sampling speeches by Malcolm X in songs like "Fight the Power," now has a dating-type reality TV show on VH1, which is a basically a vehicle for shameless actresses to try to get their start in Hollywood.

So are these changes to Monopoly shamelessly corporate? Do they take the magic out of a childhood favorite? I'd say so. But as trains become airliners, America's values change. Rather than wanting a good leather shoe that lasts a lifetime, we now want name-brand shoes that make us look cool when we go out.

As the century marches on, who knows what traditions and board games will go corporate? Will baseball players use brand-name performance-enhancing drugs in their quest to break the McHomerun record? Will Clue become "Who Killed Joe Camel?" Will Starbucks coffee become the new Thanksgiving turkey?

Who knows? But no matter what, changing "Rich Uncle Pennybags" to "Mr. Monopoly" is inexcusable.