Why do movies feature Apple laptops?

Why do most movies feature Apple laptops? I rarely see actors with any other brands. Is there a conspiracy in Hollywood against PCs or Microsoft?

—Anne, Spokane, Washington

The B!tch Replies: It doesn't take much research to realize that, yes indeed, there is a kind of conspiracy--if by conspiracy you mean a really, really good product placement person at Apple, coupled with Hollywood's adoration of all things Mac.

"Apple has done so well because they have such a great longstanding relationship with the creative types in Hollywood," explains Michael Schrager of the Entertainment Marketing Company, a product placement firm.

Watching just one hour of television will confirm that Apple has indeed done well. Very well.

Observe: In the real world, people are stupid and use Dell desktops. But in movies and on TV, everybody is as witty as Patton Oswalt—let's not forget, Sawyer on Lost can use Ponce de León in a sentence—and they carry Apple gadgets. I would not be surprised if the new season of Lost involves a downed seaplane full of Dharma Initiative iPods. And then Josh Holloway can horde them in his tent, and Matthew Fox can storm in there and snarl, "It's time. Give me the iPods."

Apples are plastered all over big and small screens; it's been happening for years. Remember Meg Ryan, in that movie where she has an email romance with...wait, do you remember Meg Ryan? Anyway, my point is Apple had Ryan's character using a Mac to flirt with Tom Hanks. Carrie—you know, Sarah Jessica Parker—used a Mac laptop to write about herself and her shoes on Sex and the City. More recently, Steve Carell's character in The Office presented an iPod as an employee gift. And we've seen other Apple toys show up on 24, CSI: NY and Las Vegas.

One would hope Justin Long and John Hodgman are getting some sort of huge royalty for their Oscar-caliber roles as Mac and PC in those ads. I fear not.

Other shows are using Mac laptops on camera, but the logos are covered up by sticky notes or the like—possibly because the network has some kind of business relationship with Hewlett-Packard or some other rival company.

As I said, there are two reasons for all this. First, Apple is widely credited for being among the first tech companies to get hip to product placement. In fact, the company has an employee whose sole job is to get Apple products in front of cameras. Her name is Suzanne Forlenza. Others whisper about her almost ninjalike product placement talents with a mix of adoration and fear.

The second reason: Macs are already the go-to computers for many Hollywood creative types—graphic designers, special-effects people, writers and so on. So, when a script calls for a character—especially a creative character like a novelist—to type away on a computer, the beloved Mac is often at the top of a propmaster's list.

But remember, Mac isn't the only brand name out there getting a ton of Hollywood love. Wonder, that whitest of breads, got all kinds of play in Talladega Nights. According to the New York Times, Will Ferrell wrote Wonder Bread into the script because it's one of his favorites, and the company didn't have to pay a thing for what experts estimate as between $5 million and $100 million in free advertising.