OUGD 501 - Consumerism and 'Ways Of Seeing'

To start this session, we began by discussing the main points made during our lecture about consumerism:

• Sigmund Freud - Instinctual desires and the 'Pleasure Principle' which talks about the way in which one of our desires has been met, we will briefly become happy and docile. This is incompatible with society and all of its rules that prevent us from doing what we really want to do, thus we shall never be truly happy.
• Edward Bernays - Consumption to satisfy desires. Applied the theories and principles of Freud in order to help companies and eventually even politicians began using these principles for social control.
• False needs are perpetuated by companies in order to sell products
• Fordism - Mass production began which caused people to have more disposable income, increased consumption and the start of brand culture and brand competition.

These traits of consumerism are still very apparent within society of today, more so than ever. There are cycles of booms and busts; companies cannot keep expanding because society has limited resources and eventually we become flooded with materialistic things causing their value to drop.

We were then given the final chapter of John Berger's 'Ways Of Seeing' and in groups we designated pages to analyse and relate to today's society and our recent lecture. This is the handout we received, in which I have under lined sections that were important or mentioned. These are the pages that other groups were given to analyse:

These were the pages that my group looked at:

What we got from our section was:

• The idea of a serious issue being used in order to sell a product or idea, which can be seen from the picture on the very first page.
• The image on the second page depicts a newspaper lay-out were an advert has been placed directly under an image of poverty and famine. Berger talks about the 'cynicism of the culture which shows them one above the other' and the way in which it can be argued that this wasn't intentional but nether the less, everything about it is produced by the same culture.
• It is not the moral shock that is most important aspect here, but is in fact the way in which the advertisers see it. 'Aware of the commercial danger of such unfortunate juxtapositions... deciding to use less brash, more sombre images'. This shows that they only see these images as having a negative impact on the adverts success.
• For publicity, these things 'happen only to strangers' and don't effect them directly.
• 'The act of acquiring has taken the place of all other actions, the sense of having has obliterated all other senses'. The 'power to acquire' becomes the most dominant feeling and dulls the senses that are evoked from the other image, simplifying them.
• In conclusion, 'capitalism survives by forcing the majority, whom it exploits, to define their own interests as narrowly as possible' and 'by imposing a false standard of what is and what is not desirable'.

TASK: Find one example of an advert that I can write a critical analysis of, using a minimum of 5 quotes from 'John Berger - Ways of Seeing', that is a critique of consumerism. (500 words)

Lynx, or Axe as it is known across the world, is a multinational corporation that reaches a global audience every day. Their modern promotional material uses an array of advertising techniques in order to perpetuate false desires for their product, which in turn ensures that they keep their vast client base and constant stream of high profit.

 This advert is no exception to this, being a very typical example of the ways in which advertising is used in order to persuade people to purchase a product that is ‘inessential at best’. This works around the idea of the pleasure principle and the way in which the spectator-buyer consumes in order to satisfy their unconscious desires, in turn becoming temporarily happy and docile. ‘Publicity does not manufacture the dream. All that it does is to propose to each one of us that we are not yet enviable – yet could be.’ (Berger, Page 149). This advert plays on the idea of presenting the viewer with the ideal life, hoping that with this image comes the overwhelming sense that we are not yet the best that we can be, not until we have bought into this product and everything that comes with it.

‘It proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives, by buying something more. This more, it proposes, will make us in some way richer – even though we will be poorer by having spent our money’ (Berger, Page 131). This idea can be seen within the tag line, ‘Spray More, Get More’, which shows how this advert is meant to transform the consumer into a much more sexually attractive and powerful male figure, thus implying that our lives would in some way become better for having bought it.

This advert shows a man on a distant beach, spraying himself with this new deodorant whilst an unrelenting crowd of women swarm to him from land and sea. This represents the ideal life, in which there is one male figure that attracts all of these beautiful females. ‘The more convincingly publicity conveys the pleasure of bathing in a warm, distant sea, the more the spectator-buyer will become aware that he is hundreds of miles away from that sea and the more remote the chance of bathing in it will seem to him’ (Berger, Page 132). Upon seeing this, the potential customer becomes aware of his reality, in which nothing like that this would ever occur. This sudden realisation causes new insecurities to appear that eventually lead to the need for this lifestyle to become his reality.

This advert attempts to make the unsuspecting viewer analyse their life and realise that they are not who they want to be and do not have the strong relationships that they want to have. ‘With this you will become desirable. In these surroundings all your relationships will become happy and radiant.’ (Berger, Page 144). It aims to perpetuate false desires for the product, an irresistible urge to have this product and in turn become what you want to be: desirable.

Overall, this advert aims to simply sell a product that we don’t really need, and in order to do so uses the concept of the pleasure principle to convince us that we need it to become better people. ‘If you are able to buy this product you will be loveable. If you cannot buy it, you will be less lovable.’ (Berger, Page 144).

Harvard Referencing:

Berger, J. (1972) 'Ways of Seeing', 1^st Edition, Penguin Books.