Commercialization of Performance Danielle Dean is an interdisciplinary artist who studies how advertising affects our personality, particularly how defining features such as age, race, and gender are not biologically determined but influenced by the media we consume. Through most of her work, Dean utilizes performance art to convey the effects commercialization and product consumption have had on consumers. The title of Dean’s first work, ‘No Lye’, is a pun derived from a phrase used in products for primarily straightening black women’s hair to signify there is no bleach in the product. The word ‘lye’ is a homophone of ‘lie’, creating a double entendre implying that consumers are often the victims of false advertisements from companies. In …show more content…
A comparable artwork is “Race Riot” by Andy Warhol, where the race riots were placed in a newspaper and signified that violence was up for mass consumption. Warhol’s piece also had a clear distinction of power, with the police on one side and the protestors on the other. The dichotomy of power is similar to how in Dean’s piece, the women were either going to become revolutionaries or consumers. Warhol uses the colors of the American flag with the images repeated once in each color to demonstrate the culture of violence in America. Dean designed her set with elements of a Nike campaign, a shopping center, and a basketball court, showcasing how capitalism and violence is intertwined with normal life. In her next work, “True Red Elmina Castle”, Dean takes inspiration from the Elmina Castle from the 1400s, which was one of the main slave prisons and was a contributing factor in expanding the slave trade. In this work, her sister plays the role of a ‘native’ and she plays the role of a ‘colonizer’ who brings these red castles into her neighborhood. Dean incorporates the idea of gentrification and the effects of capitalism on low-income …show more content…
Dean’s latest two works “Ford” and “Amazon” both deal with the exploitation of company workers. “Ford” was based on Ford Motor’s legal settlement in Brazil in which the workers were forced to assimilate into American culture, which led to a revolt, and the plantation was left abandoned. “Amazon” originates from a similar story where Amazon, a billion-dollar company, was paying their employees Amazon vouchers rather than salaries. Both of these works relate to Cildo Meireles’ “Insertions into Ideological Circuits”, which uses Coke bottles to demonstrate the effect of U.S. imperialism and the global reach of consumerism. It depicts the power America has that is distributed through its network of trade and the exploitation of the people in Brazil, resembling the exploitation of the Amazon workers. The imposition of American culture and imperialism is reflected in “Ford”, where the workers were forced to assimilate into American culture. Through her use of performance art, Danielle Dean illustrates the consequences of globalization, consumerism, and advertisement on human populations and their influence on
The method used by Susan Douglas in her essay “Narcissism as Liberation” to describe the way a particular event to practice might have a deeper meaning seems to differ somewhat with that used by Clifford Greetz in “Deep Play: Notes on a Balinese Cockfight”. In the former, the author concentrates on the method which would be best described as “direct approach”. In her explanations of the themes behind different advertising practices and their implied meanings she makes it sound as though the ones responsible for the advertisements infuse these subliminal messages on purpose into the context. She describes the play on women’s feelings to cow them into thinking that they are never the ideal and should always be working to perfect their bodies (using the advertiser’s products) is an intentional subliminal message that is infused into every commercial advertisement is done because that method seems to be effective. She stresses that the media and corporations have shaped...
Maasik, Sonia and Jack Solomon. “Brought to You B(u)y: The Signs of Advertising.” Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers. Boston; Bedford, 1997. 172. Print. 10 Mar 2014.
In Maureen O’Doughterty’s Consumption Intensified, “the dual vision” of the “immediate reality of crisis and the desired reality of the First World” is shown to have shaped middle class consciousness and desire, and further deepen the marks of division within this “heterogeneous” middle class (O’Doughterty 15, 5). “Transnational consumption, in the form of travel experiences, especially to Disney World, and consumption of imported goods” is a surprising social construction of value and rank, and expresses the influence of a foreign ideal on Brazilian social identity (23). Sustained comfortable living, and superiority over another class of people, was desperately appealing to many Brazilian families in the throes of the economic crisis, as demonstrated by the commodification of a Disney experience in the United States through bought and displayed goods, and the suggestion of expense that goes with it. The suggestion of expense and wealth throughout the crisis shaped the new concept of a Brazilian middle class “character,” a quality of living that could not be removed by an instable economy and loss of existing values. The presentation and propagation of this “character” was an extension of the old lush life prior to the crisis, and a dogged determination to hold to “traditional values.”
Advertising (marketing) in America is long past its zenith. There may have been a time when people actually paid attention to all of the flash, the glitz, and the hype, but most consumers (especially those in Generation X) are savvy and somewhat skeptical. The public is less impressed and views these types of marketing attempts as desperate, and even pathetic. Marlboro Friday (977) may stand out as a monumental day in the minds of advertisers, but there is another moment that stands out in the minds of consumers; the night a woman disrobed during half-time show at the Super Bowl. It was as if time stood still as a nation witnessed advertising shorn of its pretense. This one event exposed the true state of marketing in America. It seems every attempt to hoodwink and capture the attention of the population has already been tried; there is nowhere new to go. Stooping to nudity to try and capture the attention of the public confirms what the consumer already knows; it doesn’t matter how firms try and “clothe” their products; underneath they are all the same.
Brit, Harper, and Marika Tiggemann. "The Effect of Thin Ideal Media Images on Women's Self-Objectification, Mood,and Body Image." Sex Roles 58.9/10 (2008): 649-657. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 Oct. 2013.
“Living in an age of advertisement, we are perpetually disillusioned.” ~J.B. Priestley sums up the reality of our media today. We are constantly being influenced and affected by advertisements and how we react to them. Advertisements have a great effect on us and how we operate. Advertisements attempt to control what we should wear, how we should look, what we should eat, what we should do, how we should think, and how we should smell. This magazine advertisement is very convincing of what type of perfume we should wear. “Moschino Couture!” uses an attractive woman, simplistic layout and sample perfume to sell us the product we all yearn for.
This essay will focus on political and social printmaking in the 1960s onwards and it will show how these artists used printmaking to express political views of their times. Pop Art had emerged five years prior to the 1960’s; the Pop Art movement presented a challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular culture. It was the visual art movement that characterised a sense of optimism during the post war consumer boom of the 1950's and 1960's. Warhol was the leader of the Pop art movement; he was a major influence for socially conscious art work in the 1960s. Warhol was also a postmodernist artist; he broke down the barrier of high art and low art, much of Warhol’s work went onto address many social/political issues in the 1960s which were produced using the medium of silk screening, although he denied any interest in politics, Warhol did create silkscreen prints Red Race Riots, of 1963 (fig 9), which were based on photographs of the civil rights protesters in Birmingham, and he also created The electric chair, of 1971 (fig 10) which is a haunting image of the execution chamber at Sing Sing. Over the next decade, he repeatedly returned to the subject of the chair, reflecting on the political controversy surrounding the death penalty in America in the 1960s. Warhol presented the chair as a brutal reduction of a life to nothingness, the image of an unoccupied electric chair in an empty execution chamber became a poignant metaphor for death. Warhol strived to communicate the true feeling which is aroused by this terrifying instrument of death.
The world we are living is a fast paced ruled by the media. We are surrounded by images of, perfect bodies, beautiful hair, flawless skin, and ageless faces that flash at us every day. These images are constantly in our minds throughout our lives. Advertisements select audience openly and target them with their product. The advertisement is implied in order to be like the people in the advertisements you must use their product. This approach is not new to this generation, but widely used today. The advertisements grab people attention and persuade them with the appearance of beauty and happy women that looks sophisticated to people eyes.
Laurie was a size fourteen at age eleven and weighed one-hundred fifty-five pounds. She went through elementary school being the kid that everyone called fat and never felt love from any of her peers. Even a counselor at her after-school YMCA program made an example of her to the other children. The teacher told all the children that she used to be as big as Laurie. Putting aside all the criticism from her fellow peers and teachers she found the courage and strength to lose weight. She began doing sit-ups and eating “healthier”. In all reality, she was eating less and less every day. She went from a size fourteen to a nine and then from a nine to a five. This all happened to her between summer and Christmas. By the following summer Laurie was a size double zero. During the following school year, she was called to the nurse’s office to be weighed and the scale read ninety-seven pounds. Laurie had become anorexic from the mentally abusing childhood she experienced from her peers.
“You can’t rely on how you look to sustain you.”(Nyongo, 2014) On March 1st,2014, Lupita Nyongo, Oscar Award Winner for Best Supporting Actress in 12 Years A Slave, gave a moving speech expressing the thoughts of a young girl. An adolescent young girl wrote a letter stating her perception of being colored. She looked for medication in order to obtain lighter skin. Her self-hate consumed her and slowly prevented her from accepting who she is. The girl struggled with her self-esteem. The young girl is encouraged by several women in black society. People such as Oprah, Alek Wek and Lupita herself were the cause of the young girl’s encouragement. She went on a self-discovery of what makes someone beautiful. The girl’s mother states that she can’t eat beauty and that it is not something that could be consumed. (Nyongo, 2014). The letter persuades young girls that compassion is the key to sustain beauty. Nyongo expresses that emotional courage of oneself is accepting and embracing her external beauty.
Today in modern society, we are driven by social forces. The media plays such a pivotal role in what we buy, eat, wear, etc. that we are conditioning ourselves to fit the mold for the “perfect” or “ideal” body type. This social construct has been a pressing issue for many years regarding the negative effects it has had on the female physique, but not as much has been said on behalf of men. What negative effects do the media have on male body image? When confronted with appearance based advertisements, men are more likely to experience both physical insecurities and emotional issues related to body image. This paper will address these facets of the media’s negative
For my semiotic analysis I chose to talk about a commercial for ‘Be delicious’ from Donna Karan New York to demonstrate how advertising generates its meanings, construct the image and behaviors ideology in order to attract customers.
Advertising in American culture has taken on the very interesting character of representing our culture as a whole. Take this Calvin Klein ad for example. It shows the sexualization of not only the Calvin Klein clothing, but the female gender overall. It displays the socially constructed body, or the ideal body for women and girls in America. Using celebrities in the upper class to sell clothing, this advertisement makes owning a product an indication of your class in the American class system. In addition to this, feminism, and how that impacts potential consumer’s perception of the product, is also implicated. Advertisements are powerful things that can convey specific messages without using words or printed text, and can be conveyed in the split-second that it takes to see the image. In this way, the public underestimates how much they are influenced by what they see on television, in magazines, or online.
Body image is the mental image of one 's own body. Body image is very important because the majority of people think about their appearance and how they look all day long. Many people today have a very poor body image. The causes of poor body image include: body size, bullying, media, low self-esteem, depression, and even gender. Body image also has some very unhealthy effects on men and women. Body image in our world today is at an all-time low, but there are many ways to help improve it. The most important ways are to focus on the good and positive talents he or she has and to not compare his or her body to another individual’s body.
“The average family is bombarded with 1,100 advertisements per day … people only remembered three or four of them”. Fiske’s uses an example of kids singing Razzmatazz a jingle for brand of tights at a woman in a mini skirt. This displayed to the reader that people are not mindless consumers; they modify the commodity for their use. He rejects that the audiences are helpless subjects of unconscious consumerism. In contrast to McDonald’s, Fiske’s quoted “they were using the ads for their own cheeky resistive subculture” he added. He believed that instead of being submissive they twisted the ad into their own take on popular culture (Fiske, 1989, p. 31)