Over the last few years, I have watched the series 'Mad Men' with a lot of interest. At first, I thought, okay, great, another prime time soap opera. I couldn't have been more wrong. It's much, much more than that.
Without even thinking of the entertainment value of the show, I could go on and on about the underlying implications relative to our culture. That, of course, is the basis of the show. It takes place during the early 1960's, which is each season, basically, another year. We just started 1965 this season. Woven throughout the show are small revelations about how our culture operated 'back in the day'. Not the least of these is the way that institutions, in this case an ad agency, manipulate the public. It is the most important recurring theme in the show, but these are revealed subtly, which makes the show even more watchable.
Then, last night, after watching the latest episode of Mad Men, I ran across an old BBC production, 'The Century of The Self'. It is in four episodes and I have only watched two so far, but it is clear to me how connected these disparate shows really are. The BBC documentary is a straight up bit of reportage and Mad Men is pure entertainment, yet they speak the same language: The typical consumer is a person to be manipulated and used for the betterment of The Elites who, says the documentary, have been doing this for many decades by using scientific data to support their beliefs that they are in fact, the best people to make decisions for the world.
The idea disgusts me and yet it has stimulated a lot of introspection. Perhaps they are right to a degree. If The Public is so manipulable we aren't even aware, nor do many of us care, so long as we have The Next Big Thing in our pockets. We are a lazy populace in The West; lazy, fat, and mesmerized by all the various entertainments that our technology supplies to us, with a big bowl of fattening fast food to go with it.
Yet we continue to tout The American Way of Life. I hear it all the time and think, egad! is that what they are talking about? more and more consumer junk that we can pile on top of the older versions of whatever They have sold us in the past. We never seem to think of that these days.
Some of my favorite manufacturers use these techniques and I struggle to avoid the trap they set. Apple Computers is first on that list. Am I the only person who has wondered why they need to wait to install every last function in this, the latest version of the iPod, iPad, MacBook Pro, etc.? Apple certainly has the ability to put that camera in the iPad now, don't they? They have already announced that they have plans to install this function in the next version of the device. iPad 1.1 or would that be 2.0? This is beyond planned obsolescence, no? This is like bringing you to the edge of orgasm and holding off for 6 months. Manipulative?! No! It's more like a subtle kind of torture. Yet buyers line up overnight at every new Apple product release. I'm not sure they even care, so long as they can sport the latest thing. "Be the first on your block" I can remember from my childhood. I was born into this kind of thinking and it has only gotten more pervasive over the years.
If anyone reads this and wants to get the real lowdown on the subject, you can watch the four episodes here:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12642.htm
We could all use a little education, eh?
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Great work, so far, Ms. Marsha!
ReplyDeleteTo add to this particular conversation, check out the interview at the end of this link: http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/a_countercultural_conversation_with_noam_chomsky_20100805/
The stuff on page 2 concerning the film The Graduate, is a sort or frightening comment on Modern American Culture, because I think things have gotten somewhat worse since the sixties...