Assignment #2: Review and critique of an article about the power of advertising.

John Berger's "Ways of Seeing," but I don't have any sort of publishing info about it anymore.

Grade: A

Berger states that "[t]he publicity image belongs to the moment" (123). Advertisements seem to say that once you acquire the car, the shoes, or the sodapop they're selling, you will be better off somehow--but your life can only improve after you've bought the car, the shoes, or the sodapop, never before. He adds that "[p]ublicity speaks in the future tense and yet the achievement of this future is endlessly deferred"--if your life really were perfect after buying one can of Coke, you would never need to buy another and the Coca-Cola Company would miss out on your future disposable income (132). To combat this, commercials and poster must convince the consumer that one can of Coke is not enough--you need to keep on drinking Coke in order to see improvement. And if you're already a committed Coke drinker who's still a bit frustrated with life, you also need to buy the name-brand sneakers or the compact car. And once you've bought those, there's still the little matter of what other clothes to wear or what brand of gasoline to use. One misstep now, the ads seem to say, and you could ruin all your chances at happiness. The companies never really want that perfect or desirable future to be achieved--not that it's possible anyway--because if the consumers' lives became trouble-free with the purchase of a mulching mower, they would never shell out money for the mower repair kit.

The "perfect life" offered by advertisements is a credible proposal because publicity's "essential application is not to reality but to daydreams" (132). A gaggle of buxom blonds is not likely to appear out of nowhere just because a bottle of beer is opened, but the image of it in a television commercial is likely to appeal to your average beer drinker, who will remember it when he's at the store looking for a six-pack. But the manipulations of publicity run deeper than mere vicarious wish fulfillment, says Berger; "[p]ublicity does not manufacture the dream," but it does try to direct that dream from something pleasant and free like a brisk walk in the sunshine or a chat with a good friend to a commercial interest such as a brisk walk in a pair of Nikes or a chat with a good friend over a cup of Folger's (133). In some cases, he suggests, publicity can convince generally happy people that it's not possible for them to be happy with their lives if they don't have a Sony CDMan or a bottle of Powerade. Those in an "industrial society which has moved towards democracy and then stopped halfway" are primarily at risk from such ideas; having been told he or she is entitled to happiness but without any other visible means to acquire it, an individual in such a nation "lives in the contradiction between what [s/]he is and what [s/]he would like to be" (133).

Although the culture of advertising may seem harmless to many, its cynical nature is readily apparent when a poster in a magazine inadvertently clashes with a serious news article on the same page. In the example Berger cites on page 134 and 135, a woman just getting out of a "Badedas Bath" spots a handsome man through the window; just above the advertisement, a starving family in Bangladesh stares unflinchingly at the camera. Instead of leaving the consumer to wonder, "If I had a bath like that, would I meet a handsome man?" he or she instead compares the situation of the woman who can afford to choose what kind of bath she wants with that of the family who can hardly afford enough food to eat, let alone "luxuries" like bathing, and often the conclusion may be reached that if not buying that particular product doesn't really aid the family in Bangladesh, it at least assures the (non-) consumer that he or she isn't as greedy and vain as the "characters" in the poster. This, Berger claims, is one of the few times when the astute consumer can begin to glimpse the subversive nature of advertising and to realize the world of false values it creates.

I wasn't persuaded by Berger's arguments. In general I found them to be a mix of the painfully obvious, the completely outlandish, and a few sensible observations overshadowed by the other types. His tone implied to me that advertising was some kind of evil force that people were powerless to resist; I firmly believe that although the product with the more effective publicity campaign will see its sales rise, the money spent is not handed over as a result of forcible coercion or brainwashing. I think that publicity is only as influential as consumers let it be. The hysterical hordes of shoppers clawing each other to get the best Tickle Me Elmo or Beanie Baby should be feared, pitied, or mocked--depending on one's attitude--for each individual's willingness to believe the endless hype, not for being victims of a capitalist conspiracy.

Among his painfully obvious statements--which I found particularly annoying since he presented them as revelations--was his theory that "[p]ublicity needs to turn to its own advantage the traditional education of the average spectator-buyer" (129). According to Berger, people are generally poorly educated or, at least, if they've learned anything of the arts or literature in school, they've never found cause to use it in "real life" and hence the knowledge has faded into a hazy memory. When a window company then invokes the Palace of Versailles in its commercials, its advertising agency is hoping that people will associate "Versailles" with some kind of vague reference to luxury and elegance and not remember it as the French royalty's ode to excess at the expense of the peasants. Berger states that these "historical or poetic or moral references...should not be understandable, they should merely be reminiscent of cultural lessons half-learnt" in order to leave the impression of something desirable without possibly unpleasant details spoiling the image (129). Perhaps I reveal more about myself than about the author when I say that I'm not surprised a company whose job is to sell products preys on the poor education of consumers in order to make money. I don't even find it particularly morally reprehensible. Earlier in the paper, on page 128, Berger supplies a list of various signs and symbols from mythology and history that are frequently used in modern advertising to "trick" such uncultured consumers. While some are rather subtle and interesting to note, such as "[t]he romantic use of nature (leaves, trees, water) to create a place where innocence can be refound," other items on the list seem too obvious or easily explained to fit into the vast advertising plot he finds so "particularly striking" (128). For example, he mentions "[t]he physical stance of men conveying wealth and virility" as a message found in both historical paintings and modern advertising; it hardly seems shocking to me that those who paid for the historical paintings Berger references--wealthy, prominent men--would not want to be depicted as scrawny and ineffective, no matter what their actual appearance was (128). Although the list as a whole supports his argument that the images publicity uses to sell products were also used in oil paintings of years past, I don't understand why he feels this is such an important point that it deserves five pages out of a thirteen-page essay.

On the other side of the spectrum are musings such as "the publicity image steals her [a consumer's] love of herself as she is, and offers it back to her for the price of the product" which lead me to think he's taking the entire subject too seriously (126). It just strikes me as too poetic, too designed to elicit a strong reaction without really saying anything. Publicity, he also says, "turns consumption into a substitute for democracy...[it] helps to mask and compensate for all that is undemocratic within society" (133). To me this sounds like a scenario from a science fiction novel: a tyrannical government diverts public funds and energy into pet projects or its rulers' own pockets but allows the masses to believe they have influence over their own futures because they can choose between Coke or Pepsi. If such a government currently exists or once existed or could exist in the near future, or even if he just believes it exists, he should give an example--a country, a leader, a specific political system. Otherwise, being unfamiliar with such a bizarre form of government, I'm tempted to presume it's just another one of his disjointed ravings. He claims that "[p]ublicity adds up to a kind of philosophical system" and that advertising's true aim is to bolster capitalism by "imposing a false standard of what is and what is not desirable" on the exploited majority, presumably so they'll be easier to lead toward the cash register (133, 136). While I agree that advertising does create a world in which people who project an image like Kate Moss--thin, bony, and sullen--are often held up as the embodiment of beauty and in which being well-liked is more important than being well-respected, I hardly think that this world is impossible to escape, as he seems to imply. Of course, many people do fall under its spell; if it were not so persuasive, fewer young women would die each year of anorexia or bulimia in a vain attempt to emulate the stick-thin models selling everything from perfume to beer to cars. It's my belief, however, that a perfectly normal, well-adjusted young woman with a supportive environment would not be so vulnerable as to starve herself because of a Calvin Klein ad. The fact that she's most likely an abnormally insecure, conflicted young woman with few reliable, trusted resources to turn to only points out that such conditions as anorexia or bulimia are far more complicated than just a fixation with advertising. However, my example may be seen as a tangent as Berger isn't even that specific about what the "false standard" imposed by publicity is (136).

The smallest portion of Berger's statements--those that set well with common sense without being completely obvious--were frequently difficult to recall at the end of the essay or even to pick out from the jumble of ideas. I felt that his theory that advertising "has to sell the past to the future" was a sound argument; advertisers must often rely on a feeling of happiness or contentment the consumers are already familiar with, either from their actual past or from daydreams, in order to convince them that buying a certain car or food will "return" them to such a positive state (128). Unfortunately this theory is repeated so often throughout the essay that its point is blunted. Also, his comparison of the modern-day concept of glamor to "something apparently similar but fundamentally different" a century or two ago is very interesting; it's clear from the pictures he reproduces on page 132 that "Mrs. Siddons as seen by Gainsborough is not glamorous, because she is not presented as enviable" and that "[w]hat she is does not entirely depend upon others wanting to be like her," which stands in direct contrast to a piece of modern art by Andy Warhol depicting the face of Marilyn Monroe tiled across a page (132). I thought this idea was a tangent from the rest of the essay, although it was quite fascinating to me and I wished he could have explored it in greater depth in another setting.

Although John Berger's essay brought up some worthwhile, intriguing ideas about glamor, beauty, oil paintings, and publicity, I felt that they didn't coalesce into a manageable whole and failed to encourage support for his opinions. His view of advertising--as an oppressive, undeniable force dangerous to society--was argued with passion but not reason, and at his essay's conclusion, I was more inclined to disagree with such a view than I might have been before reading.

I like the word "tangent."