Marilyn Monroe, appearing in the 1952 movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, sang — in her coy little voice — that diamonds are a girl’s best friend.
The song has since been covered by an untold number of female singers. (It was also covered by roots rocker T Bone Burnett, apparently in the interests of gender equality.)
Men (other than T Bone Burnett) have a slightly different take, on the question of friendship. A man’s best friend is his dog.
You can buy your dog an expensive collar decorated with diamonds, but the dog will likely not be impressed. A walk in the park is worth more than diamonds, to a dog.
Twenty years later, singer Shirley Bassey performed the theme song for the seventh James Bond movie, ‘Diamonds are Forever.’ The theme song was cleverly titled, ‘Diamonds are Forever’.
Clearly, diamonds had been upgraded from ‘best friend’ to ‘immortal luxury item’.
But it turns out the diamonds had become immortal long before James Bond came along. From the Gemological Institute of America:
A diamond has to go through a lot before it reaches the jeweler’s display case. It forms deep in the earth under extreme heat and pressure. It’s ejected violently upward until it arrives at or near the earth’s surface. It’s forced from its hiding place by nature or by man.
We’re talking here about natural diamonds. Laboratories began growing synthetic diamonds back in the 1950s, and about 98% of industrial uses of diamonds are met by synthetic diamonds. (Dogs, we will note, cannot be grown in a laboratory. Another point for dogs.)
Whether synthetic diamonds are a girl’s best friend, I highly doubt. Girls seem to prefer things formed deep in the earth under extreme heat and pressure, and so on.
Like love, diamonds were once thought to be rare. Then a couple of Dutch farmers named De Beers found more diamonds than they knew what to do with, near Kimberley, South Africa, and the government thoughtfully compelled them to sell their farm, which was later purchased by a clever businessman and politician named Cecil Rhodes. Mr. Rhodes then formed a company called De Beers (to add insult to injury) and proceeded to buy up all the other diamond mines that were popping up around South Africa — and in other places — and pretty soon his company controlled 90% of the world’s diamond production.
This was very convenient for him and his investors, because by limiting the supply of diamonds on the market — and thus making them appear to be “rare” — they were able to ensure that diamonds were outrageously expensive.
A dog, meanwhile, can be picked up at the Humane Society for a few dollars… making the score, thus far, “Dogs: 3, Diamonds: 0.”
But De Beers’ biggest marketing scheme kicked off in 1947, when a copywriter working for N. W. Ayer & Son coined the famous advertising slogan, “A Diamond is Forever”. (In 2000, Advertising Age magazine named “A Diamond is Forever” the best advertising slogan of the 20th century, so it was pretty clever to name your James Bond movie “Diamonds are Forever” and cash in on the free advertising.)
Once the idea that ‘a diamond is forever’ became popular, you couldn’t propose marriage to a girl and promise to love her ‘forever’ unless you could prove the ‘forever’ part of the bargain by presenting her with a grossly overpriced piece of carbon.
No walk in the park for these fine female prospects, thank you. They wanted the real thing, ejected violently upward until it arrives at or near the earth’s surface.
Before Cecil Rhodes came along, you could win a girl’s heart by presenting her with a puppy. Now there’s only one friend good enough. Her little Best Friend Forever.
Dogs are not forever. If you’re lucky, your best friend will be around for a dozen years. How precious is that?