
I'm looking forward to seeing your projects; people have been coming up with some REALLY creative ideas. I'm glad that so many people have made it to my office hours. Keep up the good work!
OK. For this week, you're reading selections from The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man (1951), Marshall McLuhan's analysis and critique of advertising images. Here are my questions for y'all (answer both of them):
1. What is the relationship between McLuhan's argument and the image on the book's cover (visible on your right)? Use at least 1 quote from The Mechanical Bride as evidence to support your point. Note: please do more than repeat the title of the book.
2. McLuhan offers us a portrait of advertising in (primarily) the late 40s. If you were to write a new book based on McLuhan's model, what title would represent advertising in the late 2000s? What image would you put on the cover of your book? Why? Describe the image, which should function as a symbol for advertising in contemporary America (just as, for McLuhan, the mechanical bride is a symbol for advertising in the 40s).
Extra points for anyone who can post the image and not only the description (you can insert your image as your blogger profile picture and it will be visible to the right of your post).
70 comments:
The picture on Marshall McLuhan’s book illustrates his arguments within the book. The picture is of a bride who looks like she could have come off of an assembly line. She doesn’t look like she has much going on in her head—she just looks like an empty shell with a dainty little nose and big round eyes. He argues in the book that advertising is shaping the culture and its values too much. They try to scare people into buying a product by showing people with whatever flaw that the product fixes as social outcasts. Advertisers have determined what is deemed desirable, which has been made such a narrow spectrum that everyone is flawed in some way and needs to buy something to fix it. When referring to an Ivory Flakes ad, McLuhan says, “Thus, one answer to the ad’s query: ‘What makes a gal a good number?’ is simply ‘looking like a number of other gals’; to the query, ‘What’s the trick that makes her click?’ the answer is ‘being a replaceable part.’” The advertisers insist on only one definition of beauty. This makes everyone who listens want to look like they we made on an assembly line like everyone else.
A title that would represent advertising now could be 'Everything to Everyone'. This would be because in addition to the pressure to be the perfect spouse, advertisers put the idea out there that we should be parents, have full time jobs, be active and involved in everything from religious activities to volunteering to sports, have an exciting social life, and always be on the go. The cover would have a row of sterile looking subdivision houses with green lawns and no trees around and suburban soccer moms in the driveway wearing corporate attire loading their kids in the family minivan to cart them off to their various scheduled activities. I’d use this image because it illustrates the lifestyle that many American advertisers are trying to push on the public.
Katrina Schwarz
TA: Kate Brandt
In McLuhan’s article he argues that the excess of impersonal sexuality during the late 40s lead to a serious struggle for sexual satisfaction. When referring to this damaging pattern he claimed that, “no sensitivity of response could long survive such a barrage. What does survive is the view of the human body as a sort of love-machine capable merely of specific thrills.” I felt that this was an amazingly profound idea. The image presented clearly resembles the ramifications of such dehumanizing adverting: a robot bride. This article is essentially saying that the days of a clean, young, gorgeous, virgin brides are long gone. Now, in order to get the thrill of a pure wedding night we need a freshly painted, mechanically sound robot. She does whatever you ask her to, but she doesn’t care about how your day was. This idea can be supported by McLuhan’s article, which reads, “There is very little stress on understanding as compared with the immediate band of ‘history in the making.’” The problem with gorgeous legs sitting on a pedestal on the page right in front of you is that it eliminates the chase. All of the sudden it becomes extremely easy for a guy to get a girl to show off her legs. All one would have to do is buy the right magazine. All of the sudden no one knows what to do when there is a chase to be had. So, women just show their legs and men just puff out their chest; like robots.
“See No Difference.” In trying to go from the themes of 40s and 50s ads to the themes of contemporary ads it’s important to realize that there are 4 decades of themes being passed by. Sex is for everyone, that’s why they use it for advertisements. In retrospect, the 40s and 50s represent a time of healing. People were still trying to reconcile with the fact that a crazed man could empower an entire country to try and take over the world and murder umpteen million people because they were different. Then came the Cold War—any day could have ended with a mushroom cloud. Over the past 50 years people have been searching for the answer to life’s brutality. In the 40s and 50s, thinking one’s way through a sexually intimate situation would have been far too much to ask. Everybody handles that stuff differently. There’s simply too much potential for rejection. Just show us the legs already. Now-a-days, the same can be said about all differences, and it is clearly portrayed in our advertisement. If billboards were college papers they would all fail because they never say anything that can be disagreed with. For example, the “Soldier” billboards by Suzanne Opton were taken down because their meanings were “ambiguous.” People didn’t know what to think about them. Some people thought they might have been in opposition to the War in Iraq. Heaven forbid you put something like that on a billboard. People disagree about that kind of thing. In essence, this image is saying, “I would rather see nothing than acknowledge the fundamental differences of the people’s worldviews.”
Danny D’Acquisto
TA- Steve Render
The image on the cover of the mechanical bride relates to McLuhan’s claims definitely in the sense that the bride lady is emotionless and almost robotic looking and being robotic means you can get replacement parts if something were to happen. “Thus, for example, the legs ‘on a Pedestal’ presented by the Gotham hosiery company are one facet of our ‘replaceable parts’ cultural dynamics.” McLuhan believes that everybody wants to look the same like they were built in a factory. All from media advertisements. Advertising has become a way to structure society by making people in advertisements seem unwanted or un acceptable if they don’t use or possess the product in which they are trying to sell.
A title for the 2000s would be “Convenient: Why Not?” In regards to how everything is becoming easier or less human effort. With technologies of voice command you now don’t even have to hit buttons on your radio or CD player in your car to change the song. With GPS you don’t even have to know where you are going, it tells you where and when to turn. My picture would be of a fat man sitting on a hovering chair that has a pull over screen where you can surf the internet or watch TV or make phone calls on. (Much like how humans were perceived in the movie Wall-E) Soon we will have the convenience of doing everything from a sitting position taking food pills that mimic the taste of delicious food.
Douglas Mellon
TA: Steve Wetzel
Marshall McLuhan claims that advertising’s goal, in essence, is to “Manipulate, exploit, [and] control” the public’s minds In the article, there was the constant connection of men and women not as people, but as statistics sex symbols. “The public is a number which is not only expressed in curves but which is bombarded with curves...to ensnare and enslave...the spectator.” What it all boils down to, is that we are all “replaceable part[s].” With that said, the cover is the exact definition to the above. The bride signifies the out of touch viewer in a “helpless state engendered by prolonged mental rutting”, always being bombarded on how to look and act, wanting to look like that other person. We don’t make decisions for ourselves anymore; advertising does. With the concept of “replaceable part[s],” the human body and our emotions seem plastered/applied in a preconceived, mechanical way. With the bride and her flawless features and light coming from above, it eludes to the fact that we are all robots, oiled and built upon the advertisers and their ads.
As for he late 2000’s, I would give the book the title of Can’t Touch This. Wherever we go, and whatever we see, it is constantly the selling of one’s body, not as much so as to the product. Even though this was present in the ads from the 40’s, now more so than ever, it is the ONLY thing being sold. Take Abercrombie & Fitch. You walk past the store and see large portraits of half naked men and women scantily clad with hardly any coverage and you find yourself being draw to it not merely for the product, but for the risky portraits. The cover of the book would have a person staring and gawking at you, as though you were the product/mannequin/model. No matter how close you get to it, you can never achieve the perfection in the ads.
Click on this link to see photo of cover.
http://tinyurl.com/44knsq
Dan Gorchynsky
TA: Steve Witzling
1) The image on the cover of this book is that of a storefront mannequin in a wedding dress, and to me strengthens McLuhan’s argument that advertisements in media during modern times further commit us, the viewer, to impossible stereotypes and mindsets. McLuhan argues in his book, The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man, that “the smartly turned-out girl walks and behaves like a being who sees herself as a slick object rather than is aware of herself as a person.” He further cites examples within advertisements related to the sensuality and sexuality of modern media. It is because of the images presented before women in this world that their mind begins to view parts of their body as mechanical tools rather than extensions of themselves or their personality. McLuhan says, “To the mind of the modern girl, legs, like busts, are power points which she has been taught to tailor, but as parts of the success kit rather than erotically or sensuously.” The mannequins inside the storefronts are perfect figures that subliminally tell women what to be, and also tell men what to want in a women.
McLuhan does not simply say that only women are forced into an impossible image type, but that men create one for themselves as well. His primary example is the creation of the comic book hero Superman. He states that Superman is a similar to medieval angels, the most perfect of mythological beings and that men, “have dreamed of becoming like these beings for quite a while. However, fallen angels are known as devils.” The world requires that men be assertive in everyway, and that women be cold and almost robotic. The image on the cover of this book speaks to that idea quite clearly by showing the shining, plastic looking, make-up ridden mannequin of a modern woman.
2) McLuhan’s portrait of advertising during the 1940’s is titled The Mechanical Bride because it deals with the image of the modern woman and discusses the ideas of treating oneself not as a human being but as a tool for power. Personality, which I include in my definition of body image, has been shaped for decades now by modern advertising. It is because of this action that trends move faster in the new millennium, and ad campaigns switch over several times a year. If I were to write a portrait of advertising during my current adulthood, I would simply elaborate on McLuhan’s points and further explore the roles of mythology and folklore within our American culture to determine if body image created mythology or mythology created body image. I theorize though, that I would discover a circular pattern much like that of the chicken and the egg. I would title this essay Spandex Clad: The Mythology of American Body Image. The cover would be a collaged together picture of Aquaman Looking lovingly into the eyes of Ariel, the Little Mermaid as the titled words are put together like a movie strip ransom note around them. The bordered edge of the cover would be made up of hand drawn hearts and daisies on notebook paper.
Robert Francis Curtis
TA: Stephen Wetzel
In McLuhan’s, “The Mechanical Bride; Folklore of Industrial Men”, he goes on of how women’s bodies are seen as mechanical and tools for sex and technology. McLahan says, “…her legs are not intimately associated with her taste or with her unique self but are merely display objects like the grill work on a car”. We see our body parts as “replaceable parts” just like a part to a car. Advertisement such as the picture of the mechanical bride shows how perfect one can look, and sucks us in to wanting to be like her. But McLauhan’s point is that we are all shaped into mechanical robots. “Machines were coming to resemble organisms not only in the way they obtain power…but in their capacity to evolve ever new types of themselves with the help of the machine tenders”. The bride is flawless, but her face is blank. Like a robot is shaped by humans, we are shaped by advertisement.
In the late 2000’s I would use the quote, “Have Robby Do It” with a woman sitting at the kitchen table and commanding her new, human-like robot (Robby) to clean up the mess her child made at lunch. McLuhan basically predicted our future by presenting Samuel Butler’s quote (used above) that robots are resembling people already. In the late 2000’s we should be able to have the most realistic looking robots possible. Just like in the movie, I, Robot they were created to resemble the human being, and they freakishly did. In this advertisement it would be a symbol of human’s reliance on robots and how they accept them as part of the family.
Kevin Witkowski
TA David Witzling
When I look at the cover of the book, I get a feeling that I’m looking at a painting of a human and not an actual human being. There’s no life inside of her. She’s completely expressionless and looks like she has no emotions at all. On top of that, she’s completely “dolled” up with make up, nice straight hair, and a perfectly white wedding dress. The lady on the cover is basically what Marshall McLuhan is saying girls in this country are being turned into, a mechanical, reproducible, and replaceable bride. And he’s blaming it all on the advertising. Advertising is focused completely on making men and women insecure about the way they look and feel and saying that a certain product can fix any flaw. This message has gotten into our heads and we feel that we need to fix our flaws. Marshall McLuhan specifically mentions the hygiene business and advertisements. He states, “Implied in the cult of hygiene is a disgust with the human organism which is linked with our treating it as a chemical factory” (McLuhan p 61). Advertising has told us it’s not right to smell like B.O. and that we all should be “doused with synthetic odors and chemicals...” (McLuhan p 61). Basically, McLuhan argues that we are losing our human traits and replacing those with traits that can be made in factories. The mechanical bride pictured on the cover is a visualization of what McLuhan says advertising is trying to turn us into.
The title of the book would be “The Idea of Selling Ideas”. When looking at how advertisers try to sell their products these days, they don’t really sell the product as much as they try to sell you an idea. An example would be Tommy Hilfiger ads. Whenever I see an ad for one of their products, I rarely see the product. They are trying to sell the idea of a laid back, “cool” company. I see the same thing with Hollister and Abercrombie. Their stores are filled with pictures of athletic men and women having fun but nothing about how good their clothes are. The biggest advertiser of ideas and not products are the tobacco companies. Their ads tell nothing about the product or what it does. All they show are people smiling and having fun. On the cover of the book would be a picture of an athletic guy with his shirt off, with a cig in his hand, a huge grinning smile on his face, a tattoo that says “cool” on his stomach, and a girl behind him with her arms around him. I’d put this on the cover because this is what I see a lot in advertising and it shows that they’re just trying to sell an idea because there’s not product in the picture.
Kevin Witkowski
TA David Witzling
Kevin Witkowski
TA David Witzling
When I look at the cover of the book, I get a feeling that I’m looking at a painting of a human and not an actual human being. There’s no life inside of her. She’s completely expressionless and looks like she has no emotions at all. On top of that, she’s completely “dolled” up with make up, nice straight hair, and a perfectly white wedding dress. The lady on the cover is basically what Marshall McLuhan is saying girls in this country are being turned into, a mechanical, reproducible, and replaceable bride. And he’s blaming it all on the advertising. Advertising is focused completely on making men and women insecure about the way they look and feel and saying that a certain product can fix any flaw. This message has gotten into our heads and we feel that we need to fix our flaws. Marshall McLuhan specifically mentions the hygiene business and advertisements. He states, “Implied in the cult of hygiene is a disgust with the human organism which is linked with our treating it as a chemical factory” (McLuhan p 61). Advertising has told us it’s not right to smell like B.O. and that we all should be “doused with synthetic odors and chemicals...” (McLuhan p 61). Basically, McLuhan argues that we are losing our human traits and replacing those with traits that can be made in factories. The mechanical bride pictured on the cover is a visualization of what McLuhan says advertising is trying to turn us into.
The title of the book would be “The Idea of Selling Ideas”. When looking at how advertisers try to sell their products these days, they don’t really sell the product as much as they try to sell you an idea. An example would be Tommy Hilfiger ads. Whenever I see an ad for one of their products, I rarely see the product. They are trying to sell the idea of a laid back, “cool” company. I see the same thing with Hollister and Abercrombie. Their stores are filled with pictures of athletic men and women having fun but nothing about how good their clothes are. The biggest advertiser of ideas and not products are the tobacco companies. Their ads tell nothing about the product or what it does. All they show are people smiling and having fun. On the cover of the book would be a picture of an athletic guy with his shirt off, with a cig in his hand, a huge grinning smile on his face, a tattoo that says “cool” on his stomach, and a girl behind him with her arms around him. I’d put this on the cover because this is what I see a lot in advertising and it shows that they’re just trying to sell an idea because there’s not product in the picture.
Kevin Witkowski
TA David Witzling
Marshall McLuhan’s metaphor of The mechanical bride gives us the image of a standardized image of beauty, cleanliness, and efficiency that has been created by advertising. That, in order to be happy in this materialistic world you need to mold yourself into the ideal shape to fit into the slots the industrial age has for every person. If you cannot make yourself fit you will be poor, unloved, and never find “true” happiness. In the chapter How not to offend, McLuhan argues that “Implied in the cult of hygiene is a disgust with the human organism which is linked with our treating it as a chemical factory”. Much like the disgusting runoff from a chemical factory, our bodies create a pollution that repels other human beings away from you. McLuhan also states that “…when the hideous specter of body odor looms, all human ties are canceled”. When we have cleansed ourselves of the filth, odor, dirt and sins are bodies create we can begin to socialize. If our bodies are a chemical factory then all we have to do is raise our standards of cleanliness to earn the respect of our fellow “chemical factories”.
My title would be “Gullible is written on your forehead! Buy this cleanser! Marketing ploys and the idiots who fall for them.” On the cover we would see a zombie, sitting in front of a computer with “Gullible” stamped on its forehead. The zombie would look as though it is just about to try to look up at its own forehead to confirm the claim. Zombies represent the hollow, mindless existence of most people today who depend on material possessions and pop culture to give them a sense of purpose. The image of the computer is just a reflection of the times. It’s the main source of pop culture and marketing ploys found today. The title is a bit long considering the attention span most people have today, but I hope that the condescending title would insult and shock people into reading the book.
Nathan Irish
TA Kate Brandt
The relationship between McLuhan's argument and the picture on the book's cover is morbid one. McLuhan's book shows us how all types of media, such as advertisements, newspapers, posters, magazines and comic books (stuff that can be massed produced), create ideas that affect those of us who read or look at them, not always in positive ways. McLuhan, describes the purpose of this mass produced media as "to keep everybody in the helpless state engendered by prolonged mental rutting." The cover of the book reminded me of The Stepford Wives, a book and film about these everyday women who live in the suburbs and do everything perfectly, or at least perfectly according to the idea of perfection society has engrained in their heads, like beauty, success, and wealth. At the end of The Stepford Wives though, it turns out that these perfect women are actually robots being controlled by their husbands and these perfect wives are actually only the husband's ideas of what a perfect wife should be, not what or who they actually are. The Stepford Wives shows how people can be brainwashed into doing and thinking crazy things about stuff that's important to us that normally we probably wouldn't care about. The mechanical bride on the cover of the book I see as sort of a Stepford wife, who represents our society and how we can be susceptible to this sort of advertising.
For a modern book like McLuhan's, I might title it The Mechanical Miss Universe. It seems to me that the difference between advertising in the 1940's and advertising now is that the modern advertisements are telling you even more what to buy, what to look like, what to act like. For the cover I might put a picture of a modern female mannequin. This is sort of a metaphor for how advanced our society has become, how hip and cool we supposedly are, but in the end we'll hopefully realize it's still a mannequin. It's still fake.
Travis Torok
TA: Steve Wetzel
To me, the girl in the picture looks fake. She looks too perfect. Her make-up and and hair look painted on and glued on, respectively. She looks like a mannequin. This fits with what McLuhan says: "In this respect the ad agencies function in relation to the commercial world much as Hollywood doesn in respect to the world of entertainment...So Hollywood is like the ad agencies in constanly striving to enter and control the unconscious minds of a vast public...in order to exploit them for profit." (found in "Love-Goddess Assembly Line"). Hollywood represents people as being perfect, as they airbrush them and alter their images with computers when they are shown in magazines and ads. Many times people to go to Hollywood end up looking the same.
For a title, I would choose "Everywhere", as ads are everywhere nowadays, trying to influence us. The image would be a computer, as that is a newer invention that people have more access to, because they are getting to be more afforable. The internet, a part of the computer, is always filled with advertisements. I might also have images of t.v.'s and magazines filling up the page, to drive home the title of "Everywhere".
Marshall McLuhan argues that sex and technology dominates the media. On the front cover of his book, "The Mechanical Bride", there is an image of a robotic woman dressed as a bride. The Mechanical Bride represents the merging of sex and technology, as a bride has sex on her wedding night. The Mechanical bride also exemplifies a "love machine" that is capable of pleasures and thrills. According to McLuhan, this is how the media intends to capture people. The media itself is this "love machine" which gives people pleasure. McLuhan believes that media is a form of sadism. He says, "Sensation and sadism are near twins. And for those for those for whom the sex act has come to seem mechanical and merely the meeting and manipulation of body parts, there often remains a hunger which can be called metaphysical but which is not recognized as such, and which seeks satisfaction in physical danger, or sometimes in torture, suicide, or murder."
If I were to write a book based upon McLuhan's model, the book's title would be "The Summon of Man". The image that would be on the cover of the book is a hypnosis sign. I choose this title and image because the media has taken a toll over humanity. The media has a substantial influence over people and their decisions. The media can be extremely convincing. It is as if people are being hypnotized by the media.
The image on the cover of the book is a metaphor for McLuhan’s argument. He argues that advertisements are controlling our culture. They have deemed what is fit and unfit. This image is a perfect bride, anything else is unsatisfactory and you must buy until you have reached this perfection. McLuhan talks of people being made off assembly lines in factories. He talks of people just having “replaceable parts.” The advertising is manipulating people into what is the correct way.
If I were to write a book on McLuhan’s model for the present I would call it, “Same Thing.” McLuhan talks of advertising trying to present a norm. Still today I think advertises try to tell us what is cool and un-cool. They pay celebrities to use their products so we buy them. The cover would have some jock with no shirt, drinking Gatorade, and some beautiful girl with huge boobs, wearing Victoria secret underwear. Millions of people would buy the book thinking it would show them the key to perfection
Matthew Axberg
TA Katherine Brandt
The relationship between McLuhan's argument and the book cover is one that questions technology,sex,and the woman gender as it played a huge backbone in consumerism. In the "Mechanical Bride" essay McLuhan states how sex is an "instrument of power, in an industrial and consumer contest"...(173). He elaborates more exploring the quote mentioned above on how the woman possessed power within the market industry. The woman was a metaphor in such invention's like cars,objects,jewelery etc. The mannequin in the front cover is used in a context to indicate products, which could be sold with the idea's of the woman gender and sex. The excepts in this weeks reading prove that this method of sex and exposure of the innocent woman, has been a sucess in the market. I believe that this method of marketing will never die, because of the generation's addiction of viewing magazines and TV that deal with materialism and fetishes.
Sex & Goodies would be the title of my book, which includes a wide variety of products and consumer goods. The front cover of my book would feature both woman and men using everyday tools such as labtops and vehicles. The genders would be wearing presentable and raunchy clothing to represent both realms including career and off the clock type of clothing. I believe doing this would define the human being in a way that is more realistic in todays times.
Dominitric Griffin
T.A. David Wetzling
Andrew Megow-
McLuhan states first hand in his section "The Mechanical Bride", "Anybody who takes time to study the techniques of pictorial reportage in the popular press and magazines will easily find a dominant pattern composed of sex and technology." (pg 172 in CR) Technology can be sexy, very sexy sometimes. Sex sells you see. I don't even mean the hot 'n heavy stuff, I'm just talking the appeal of a symbol in terms of sex. Sex appeal will get someone everywhere which is a grim truth. In the late 40's, early 50's it was common to "settle" down and raise a family. You would need to be with another individual and back then divorce was not common and often frowned upon. Therefore the media decided it was up to the women to keep the marriages together and the only way to do that is to please the man. It was still an extremely male dominant world so when the men would bring home the bacon, the women would cook it, clean it and live it, all to please the man. But the women couldn't just do that, they had to look good while the did it so the media told them to have sex appeal. Dress nicely, smell good, and look happy when your in the bathroom scrubbing the tub. That's where the idea of this "Mechanical Bride" comes in. The cover satires the way women were treated as science experiments at the time. As you look at the cover what do you see? A bride. Not just any bride, but a beauty of a bride. Her eyes are closed as well. When I see this image, what I get is the idea of the bride of Frankenstein type deal. The woman appears to be asleep (or off) and in the back or by pushing a button somewhere would activate her (wake her up). Today, we live in a society where that idea is not as common as it was 50 years ago. Women are more independent today and the world itself has gotten in a big hurry. Business is everyone's business in the world as we know it and there are magazines that show women on their way to the office or in their "own" car driving to work in a "suit". Are there still advertisements displaying fragrances and wanting you to look your best? Of course. But nowadays the hygiene commercials are aimed more towards young adults then women. Now we have diet commercials and weight programs to stay thin, and it's amazing, this phenomenon about dieting. Why dieting? Women aren't at home all the time anymore. They need to look good for presence in the office or show off intimidation towards their coworkers with the idea that you've got it all. Overall I almost believe if McLuhan made a book these days, he would call it "The Vanishing Bride" for the reason of women being more independent. Marriage is in fact probably at an all-time low in today's world, and there's more advertisements displaying people having more fun being single and living the high roads. A spouse would just keep that dream little Susie or little Jane have of being succsessful lawyers or business women. The picture on the cover would be simple. A white cover with the title "The Vanishing Bride". All we see is a vail of flowers a bride would carry on the white ground as if the bride dropped them. on the right side of the cover we see the ends of a gown from a bride as if to say she is leaving. This would be the image I feel would represent best the new millenium.
T.A Laura Bennett
In "The Mechanical Bride," McLuhan explores the mysterious nature of advertisements and discovers the recurring themes of sex, technology, and death. He does not give a complete or final explanation as to why these themes constantly appear in advertising, but he does suggest that people may be unsatisfied with their human lives, and therefore crave fulfillment through a different medium. We see on the cover of McLuhan's book a plastic doll of a woman in a wedding dress. It is important that she is a synthetic creation, to represent the desire to experience something non-human, or machine-like. And the look of satisfaction on the woman's face corresponds to McLuhan's observation that sex is omnipresent in advertising, used to lure people by tempting their fantasies.
"iLife"
The basic themes of advertising have not taken a different path since McLuhan's time; rather they have evolved in a continual motion. There is a certain realism in today's advertising, however, that does differ from the ads of the nineteen forties and fifties. The title "iLife" is representative of the apparent goal of contemporary advertising, which is: show the people real life, and make it better... then they will crave the product that serves as a tool to improve their lives. The image used on the cover of this book would be a man sitting in a grey room, wearing a suit and tie, staring at and holding a colorful cube. The cube represents the technological fulfillment of an "actual" life.
Eric Grycan
TA: David Witzling
McLuhan showed an animated criticism of advertisement in these selected readings from his book, The Mechanical Bride. His overall issue with advertising is the specific category it tries to place everyone into. For example, we see on the books cover what may be an actual human being, or a wax figure of a bride. The complexion appears overwhelmed with artificial methods and her beauty is typical of what McLuhan describes as the “perfect-dame”. Instead of treating beauty as a dynamic characteristic, advertising has forced the people to visualize small waists, make-up enhanced faces, and delicate eyes. Because of the overwhelming ideas forced at people, they eventually adapt to the ideas advertising. McLuhan eludes to this when he says, “Just as success and personality know-how consist of recipes and formulas for reducing everybody to the same pattern, we seem to demand, in harmony with this principle, that love goddesses be all alike.” Here McLuhan shows his argument that, over time, suggestive advertising has changed our preference of womanly beauty.
“Individuality: The New Conformity” would be an accurate statement for today’s advertising trends. Often, it’s easy to see many companies trying to appeal to the desire of individual’s wanting to be, well, individual. Clothing stores that appeal to teenagers are guilty on all charges. Every store, in some way, tells its customers they can “express themselves” at this specific store, and here they will find the “hottest trends” not available anywhere else. However, a quick look at some stores clothing options would show the same selection, organized in the same fashion. Youths are tricked into believing his or her clothing is unique and different, when in fact, the individuality they believe in, is truly the conformity of everyone wanting to be different.
Mitchell Keller
TA: Laura Bennett
Elizabeth Miller
The relationship between the illustration on the book cover and Marshall McLuhan's book "The Mechanical Bride" includes technology, sex and the women gender. The picture shows a seductive looking woman and the script from "The Mechanical Bride" says, "The walk, the legs, the body, the hips, the look, the lips". Marshall McLuhan is illustrating the sensuality of the book cover and "The Mechanical Bride". He also explains that the women have both a feminime side and a masculine side.
If I was to write a book in the late 2000s, I would probably name it " Everyday Life". I chose this title, because women are faced with sensuality choices every day. A symbol for this book would have to be a woman's legs on a chair/ pedestal looking seductive. This type of image is one of the most common images you will see for a sensuality mood. This type of action mainly takes place in bars or or in club type of scenes. Another way to look at sensuality is the sexuality of it. For example, when you're married you'll have plenty of sensual moments and I feel that the cover page on the book may be saying something about marriage and what it could bring.
Elizabeth Miller
T.A. Kate Brandt
McLuhan puts fourth a criticism of advertisement and our subjection to unrealistic standards of beauty that bestow a state of divinity upon technology. This practice dehumanizes the masses and degrades sexual individuality and intimacy in "...the interfusion of sex and technology. It is not a feature created by the ad men, but it seems rather to be born of a hungry curiosity to explore and enlarge the domain of sex by mechanical technique...". The image on the front cover represents this idea of false "manufactured beauty",the main talking point of the McLuhan's book.
The title I would use to relate to advertising in present day would be "Can We Build it? Yes we can!". Taking substantial influence from McLuhan, it would discuss the ways in which our entire society and personal lives have been built by the advertising companies. To these people, even the most farfetched things are possible, so the front cover would come equipped with a picture of backhoe taking chunks out of a national landmark and reforming it into a "beautiful" person.
Andrew Tolstedt
TA: David Wetzling
The world of advertising has long been connected with social classes. Ads show you what your life could be like, if you buy this product. It's always the newest clothes or shoes, the fanciest perfume that can make you better than everyone else. While everyone is in "the helpless state engendered by prolonged mental rutting," we are reduced to objects, not humans. This is McLuhan's point in his article, "The Mechanical Bride." He esencially believes that we are no longer thinking and living, but with advertising constantly bombarding us, we are merely replacing parts of ourselves.
If I were to create a McLuhan-esque book for the 2000's, it would have to be entitled "WARNING! Contains Content for Viewers 18+." It would be a black book, with the text in bright red. This concept is relevant to the way sex is used in advertising. Everyday we see some sort of sexual innuendo in an ad, if not a provocative picture of some woman or man either on TV or in a magazine. Sex is everywhere and kids are becoming subject to it at an earlier age everday. They wonder why kids are getting pregnant and sexually active at a younger age? Maybe if they weren't surrounded by sex all the time, society could have one less thing to worry about.
Steve Ball
T.A. David Witzling
Marshall McLuhan’s arguments in The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man are represented well by the book’s cover image. The image is a close-up of a bride, her nose in the air and her large eyes closed. She is the sum of many “replaceable” parts put together by the massive amount of persuasive advertising that flood our culture. Thanks to the influence of hygiene she is visually flawless. But she seems devoid of consciousness. This image coincides with what McLuhan notices about society. He writes, “Legs today have been indoctrinated. They are self-conscious. They speak. They have huge audiences. They are taken on dates. And in varying degrees the ad agencies have extended this specialist treatment to every other segment of the feminine anatomy.” McLuhan believes these views and treatments have made men and women alike more concerned with their looks than their ideas, thus a mechanical bride. One specifically created to cope with the cultural advantages of the day.
If I were to write a book about advertisement in the late 2000s I would title it “Persuasion Highway”. Today we are constantly bombarded by propaganda. Whether it is on the side of the road, in what we read, watch, or listen to, we are exposed to some form of advertisement at almost every moment of our waking lives. In a way this turns our lives into a constant stream of persuasion, as if we were driving down a highway to view the advertising instead of reaching a destination. On the cover of this book I would have an interstate’s horizon engulfed in billboard advertising.
Nathaniel Winter
TA: Laura Bennet
When you look at the cover of Marshall McLuhan’s book it may remind you of the creepy wax figures you see in old horror movies with cob webs covering them in a dark scary manor. A life less figure with no mind of its own. As if it came right off an assembly line made to meet the satisfaction of its creators. This relates directly to what McLulan says “Thus, one answer to the ad’s query: ‘What makes a gal a good number?’ is simply ‘looking like a number of other gals’; to the query, ‘What’s the trick that makes her click?’ the answer is ‘being a replaceable part.’” (96) Using this image as the cover directly reflects this. Even though my reference to the bride looking like a wax figure while the title refers to a mechanical being the idea is very similar. The idea that advertising is attempting to place what seem to be guide lines to be things like the perfect spouse or have this perfect image; although most of the time these standards that they are trying to set are very rare to achieve. For everyone to achieve such standards they would have to be created the same. This reflects the cover where the images appears to be as if it were manufactured. No two people in this world are truly the same so how is it that advertising expects to have guide lines?
A title for society in the 2000’s the idea that first came to mind was “Plastic Perfection.” The idea comes from the show “Nip/Tuck” in the opening credits there is mannequins with red lines being drawn on their bodies of where the surgery will be done if it were a real being. This represents the ironic aspects of our society because we all want there perfect bodies and advertising today reflects the smooth defined bodies of models in things like Abercrobie and Fitch ads where men and women are in this seemingly perfect shape advertising clothes with hardly any clothes on at all. Making us want to buy these clothes in hopes it will make us resemble these models. The tabloids talk about celebrities going under the knife all the time. Showing us that there is no such thing as naturally perfect and we are trying to full fill unrealistic standards.
nip/tuck opening credits
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwachX8lv4o&NR=1
Zachery Holder
TA: Laura Bennet
Marshall McLuhan’s article “The Mechanical Bride” claims that advertising companies in this age attempt to “get inside the collective public mind” using manipulation and exploitation (McLuhan V). Using slight exaggeration to reveal truth, he points out that men and women are no longer viewed as people, but as flawed and imperfect, in need of what the advertising companies can offer to make them better and more beautiful. Essentially, this makes people all clones of each other, which is what the picture on the front of McLuhan’s book suggests. The bride on the front appears to be some sort of flawless robot- with her perfectly proportioned face and her smooth skin, she looks like she may have just come from a factory. McLuhan points out that women are pressured by ad agencies to have perfect legs, and that the “agencies have extended this specialist treatment to every other segment of the feminine anatomy” as well (98). The ad companies promise women that if they are all-around flawless, they will be successful and happy. McLuhan suggests that people today are attached to the advertisements- built upon them in such a way that emotions are purely mechanical, based upon a flawless (or robotic) appearance.
If I were to write a book for the 2000s based on McLuhan’s model, I would title it “The Art of Thoughtlessness,” because I feel that people today are so attached and focused on what they want and how they can be happy that they rarely think about others, whether in America or in the rest of the world. McLuhan’s claim that “the voice of reason is audible only to the detached observer” (3) is an appropriate additive to my argument, because it effectively portrays the idea that people are so brainwashed into living what ad agencies pitch as the “perfect life” that they are essentially detached from the rest of the world. The front of my book would be a busy street scene of people going about their daily routine, completely un-phased by who may be standing next to them, of who may seem lonely, or of who may need help. Granted, labeling all people as “thoughtless” is a hasty generalization, but my book would be similar to McLuhan’s in that it is an exaggeration to show a small truth about society. I do, however, believe that some people in our society believe that if they have the perfect house, the perfect career, perfectly nutritious meals, and a flawless family, they will be happy. Because of this, people often throw away what they have when things get hard (this is illustrated by the increasing divorce rate) or become unhappy if their life isn’t exactly what it appears to be on TV or in magazines, ad agencies main distributors.
Here is a picture of what my cover may look similar to- http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/10_04/busystreetDM2310_468x351.jpg
Bryn Unger
TA: Laura Bennett
Marshall McLuhan discusses in his book how there is a relationship between advertisements and society. McLuhan furthers how advertisements have powerful influences over society. Advertisements, which are a type of media, controls the way we think, see, and what we as an American society does. This causes our society to become very predictable. As a result our human actions become more like the repetitive and predictable actions of a machine, hence the term “Mechanical Bride”. In order for a machine to work there must be specifications. We as a society, as a result of advertisements, have come up with certain specifications. Examples of these specifications would be types of curves for women's body, masculine way of driving specific cars, how to be good husband, how to be the best wife a man can have, etc. This American Society has become very narrow and stuck on these certain ideals, similar to the way a robot would have maintained its task or certain routine. This mechanical thought has become very automated, without thought. In this regard we are like machines because we have lost focus on our being and souls. We have evolved into soulless machines. "The only functions left for the human mind are pure speculation, on one hand, or the manufacture of ever greater mechanical brains, on the other. Those who are not fitted for either of these arduous pursuits- the great majority of men- will inevitably sink into a serfdom for which they have already been very well conditioned" (p. 92 (p. 166 in the book)). In order to make things easier, we are adapting to functioning like robots. We barely think for ourselves and have become soulless like the woman on the cover of the book. She is very robotic like, without any emotions, any soul. The avoidance of becoming mechanical in it self is very tedious and constant work, but if not done then we have turned into slaves of society. Struggling with all the hardships of trying to break away from what other people think we must do to fit in. Society is harsh on those who do not fit into this ideal of how we should be.
Today's advertisements continue to evolve the idea of mechanical, but it is furthered to include and evolve around sex. Nearly all of the advertisements out relates to sexual activity. The symbol for today's decade would be a female nude model. It would be apparent that she is nude but it does not cross the line into public pornography, so to speak. This is a matter of opinion as well. This can be seen in many ads. This is true because of how sex has become part of society's open, public daily life. Sex is in conversations, we see it everywhere, including in our mind. I would put the symbol of the nude woman on the cover of the book because of how ads and Hollywood are constantly exposing society with many sexual related ideas. It is very obvious and vivid in the media. The title could be renamed to “It is all about Sex in the Media."
Catie Eller
TA: Steve Wetzel
There are four different apsects of mis-en-scene. The four aspects are setting, costume and make up, lighting, and staging. All four of these aspects are used within both The Baby’s Meal by the Lumiere Brothers, and The Cook in Trouble by Melies. In The Baby’s Meal the setting is very true to life. Everything in this movie looks realistic and looks like it depicts real life. The costume and makeup in The Baby’s Meal are very subdued and average looking. The lighting of this film adds to the realism of this film by looking natural, as if this is just a shot of everyday life. The staging is presented in a way as to look like normal life. The family is seated in a normal way as if they really are just sitting and eating a meal. The Cook in Trouble has nearly the opposite mis-en-scene as The Baby’s Meal. The setting is very unrealistic in this film. The set is very theatrical and does not attempt to look very real. The costume and makeup are also theatrical. The costumes are exaggerated and not something people would really wear. The lighting is very similar to the theater, where lighting comes almost entirely from above. The staging is always facing the audience and the camera never goes for alternate angles on the set.
The axis of action is easy to determine within this clip. The camera consistently uses the 180 degree rule for the filming of this scene. The line in which the camera does not cross is along the man in the middle. The camera never goes behind this man and only shows angles in front of him or from his left and right sides. This technique allows the viewer to not become confused about where the camera is in this scene.
Charlie Ripple
T.A. Kate Brandt
1. McLuhan's argument is that most images today do not depict real life or realistic events very well, if at all. For instance the picture of the bride on the cover, looks like porcilen sculpture or a robot. She does not look like an intelligent human being and the entire image seems to emphasize her unrealistic beauty and beauty only. McLuhan mentions throughout his book that images in the media today are used in a manipulative way in order to make you feel self-conscious, uncomfortable or unfulfilled unless you look a certain way or own certain material items. As McLuhan explains on page six in the Preface, "This book reverses that process by providing typical visual imagery of our environment and dislocating it into meaning by inspection. Where visual symbols have been employed in an effort to paralyze the mind, they are here used as a means of energizing it." In other words, your typical image in today's society is usually about making you feel a certain way immediately without letting you contemplate what the true meaning behind the image is. But McLuhan's book is all about taking an image today and breaking it down with questions and a complete thought process.
2. If I were to write a book incorporating McLuhan's principals of thought and questioning for the late 2000's it would be titled, "The Sexy Couple: Unrealistic Expectations." Then the image on the book would be of an anorexic 20 year-old girl who weighs about 100 lbs., alongside a guy who is the same age and is ripped out of his mind with a six pack and bulging muscles. I would chose this title and image because that is what men and women in our society have to look like in order to be considered attractive. I think in today's society, girls have it much worse than guys do. If you look at any magazine that targets girls in their teens to their mid-twenties, virtually every model is rail thin and has a perfect complexion. In other words, in the late 2000's body image is everything. Magazines that target the young age groups of both sexes, often advertise a very specific and unrealistic way to look which is done for a specific reason: money. Marketing wise it makes sense to advertise the perfect body image, because most people cannot attain it. This means that people will continue to buy these magazines, because they feel inadequate unless they have someone or something telling them how to get that perfect look.
Connor Murray
TA: Katherine Brandt
Perfection is what most people see when they look at this image. The image represents perfect beauty and sexuality. McLuhan really emphasizes perfection and sex in the 1940’s-50’s. “Ads like these not only express but also encourage the strange disassociation of sex not only from the human person but even from the unity of the body.” This statement demonstrates McLuhan’s criticism of sex as an independent object rather than a part of the human condition.
If I ever wrote a book, I would call it “Perfect People” and I would have images of beautiful women and handsome men on the cover in order to attract attention. Today sex still sells anything. And the sex has be what somebody has determined to be perfect. That’s usually a big breasted woman with an impossibly thin waist and bony arms or a perfectly proportioned man with to die for “abs”. This perfection sells. An inanimate object such as a DVD player won’t capture the interest that a beautiful model will. This has been true since the 1940’s when images of perfect people graced the covers of major magazines, movie trailers and music videos. Some people may think of this is as sexual advertising. It is, however, one of the biggest forms of advertising. Look at the Abercrombie & Fitch marketing, there are “perfect” men wearing pants with the Abercrombie & Fitch logo, or “perfect” women wearing a tight T-shirt that has the Abercrombie & Fitch logo on it. For the longest time, magazines, clothing companies, and other forms of advertising have always used images that emulate perfection. Ugly or ordinary doesn’t sell. Only beauty and perfection will.
TA: K. Brandt
In Marshall McLuhan’s article, “The Mechanical Bride”, he argues many different points about how advertising agencies in the 1940’s tried to exploit everyday people into buying their product by purposely suggesting that without it, the person would not have the same beauty, personality, or sexuality as they possibly could. The ‘Mechanical Bride’ on the cover of the magazine is the perfect representation of what these advertising agencies and companies want out of their consumers. The seemingly innocent purchasers of their products become drones to everyday society and begin throwing away what is important, such as individuality in order to achieve a look that is ‘normal’ because of how these companies make people think they should look. In turn, people become robots with no personality or individuality in order to be accepted by these advertising schemes.
If I were to write a book about the advertising of today, I would name it, “Designer Life”. It seems that consumers today are obsessed with having the best brands and labels on their clothing. For example, the picture on the front of my magazine would be an attractive girl wearing pair of pre-ripped jeans from Hollister. These pants are completely impractical since, generally, the main point of wearing pants is to cover your legs up. However, since Hollister has their signature back pocket swoosh and expensive label, everyone must have them to fit in. The sexual overtones of the picture are almost too obvious to mention, since the culture of today has been absolutely bombarded with them. The designer labels that consumers must have in order to live has become their designer life.
Mark Scholbrock
TA: Kate Brandt
Marshal McLuhan’s “the Mechanical Bride” was a very important book that stills holds true to a lot of modern day problems. In his book he claims that the media is trying to ““Manipulate, exploit, and control” people’s minds. This is still true today because many commercials influence the way people shop and think. The cover of this book has a robotic women on it to represent the women of the 50’s. Back then the perfect women was supposed to do exactly what than man said, sort of like a robot.
If I wrote a book the new millennium it would be titled “I Want It and I want It now.” This book would describe the new millennium by addressing the issues of how people want everything but don’t want to put forth the effort to get it. The cover would have a close up babies face crying on the front cover of it.
Zach Cosby
kate Brandt
While describing the Woman in the Mirror ad, McLuhan says, “A Most necessary contrast to “raging, animality” is that a girl should appear gentle, refined, aloof, and innocent”. He brings up connections and examples from that time period, namely the novel The Great Gatsby. He describes Gatsby’s desire for Daisy, emphasizing her innocence. To Gatsby, Daisy represents a dream. He’s been through war and violence, so to him, Daisy is everything that’s sweet and right in the world. The perfect version of her, of course, doesn’t truly exist outside his mind. His hopes about a future with her aren’t based on reality. This sense of women not being real, but only representing ideas or desire, relates to the cover of McLuhan’s article. The woman doesn’t look real at all, but she’s decorated with the intension of being appealing. Her features are exaggerated and jut out in sharp relief, making it apparent that real women don’t look like this, and most women don’t look like the woman in the ad with the horse.
The book title of the 2000’s would be “Unique just like everyone else”. Today in popular culture there is a sort of rebellion and push for individualality. At the same time though, these icons are idolized and a lot of times copied. There aren’t many looks or chosen appearances or behaviors out there that haven’t already been introduced by someone with fame or influence. It’s hard to find that image that one feels perfectly comfortable with. On the cover there would be pictures of different looks that are popular, especially with the youth today. Maybe the people would be grouped together, showing they’re different, but they’re unified in their differences.
Cassie Hutzler
Steve Wetzel
The image of the mannequin wearing a wedding veil on the cover of Mechanical Bride: Folklore of the Industrial Man emphasizes the power of advertisements, according to McLuhan. McLuhan argues that ads point out our flaws as a means to make us feel inferior, use sexual imagery to sell products, and “drown” us in a sea of conformity. As McLuhan puts it, “The pocketbook is the gland in the new body politic that permits the flood of goods and sensations not be arrested by our protective shell but to sweep into our lives.” By allowing this flood of ads and product placement, we allow machinery and industry to become integral parts of our lives. Thus, we have “married” into a world of machines and mechanical reproduction.
Today, I believe a good title for a book of this nature would be The Electronic Family. The cover would feature a family dinner scene, but instead of the family members simply sitting at the table, each member would be using a laptop computer at the table, with no two family members looking at each other. Instead, they are all focused intently on the screens of the computers, letting the light of the latest electronic ads play across their features. This would emphasize the incredible power the internet and internet advertising have on the new, electronic world.
Joseph Otterson
TA: Laura Bennet
I believe that McLuhan is trying to show us that we are "marrying" technology. The woman in the picture looks fake and he talks about how during the 1940s we started to have a "depletion" of sexuality and how technology started to become a bigger part of our lives. He argues that industrialism has caused a certain sexual immorality. He states "The fact that England, the first country to develop know-how and industrial technique, was also the first to develop the ideal of the frigid woman." He also mentions divorce and homosexuality coming out of this era.
My title for a 2000s book would be "Land Of Lies". I'm picturing an image in the likeness of the multiple Andy Worhall picture except showing perdominant figures of the media as the people in the frames. This is showing how advertising is sucking all of our thoughts out and showing that we are being manipulated by them. We have now gotten to the stage where the information we are being fed is through bias points of view who only want to make money off of us.
Kyle Arpke
TA: Bennett
As I read the excerpts I can draw the obvious conclusion from both the title picture and McLuhan’s argument that to him women are objects. The picture shows the women as a manikin, not living and just something pretty to look at. Upon reading his articles, women are defined as use for sex, and a common phrase of a woman’s legs to be displayed. He says, “To the mind of modern girls, legs, like busts, are power points which she has been taught to tailor…” This goes along with the entire idea of in today’s society women are taught to become objects, willing to show off for men, and display their beauty not their mind. The picture is just a pretty face, similar to the advertisements to get men into a product. Of course these days they are some woman with amazingly brilliant minds, and would refuse to use themselves as an object, avoiding the advertising slogan, Sex Sells.
I believe now that if I needed to write a new book about the new ideals for woman in this century I would title it, “Sex Can’t Discriminate” Today we have women fighting for equal rights in order to receive equal pay and opportunity. These laws have been passed, and while they’re still women in advertisements using sex, they are several more women who find it offensive to have a woman displayed as an object. My picture on the cover would be of woman very modestly dressed in a business suit with no resemblance of trying to look sexy, or attract a man. Her face would only be half shown because she would be nose deep in a book titled with “Sex Can’t Discriminate.” She would be seated behind a desk with her computer and looking very professional, and respected. This would show women striving for something more in life than having a pretty face, and now more concerned with satisfying their own goals rather than just being there for a man’s.
Matt Prekop
TA: Kate Brandt
McLuhan’s article is stating that the ad agencies create the perfect people to be models so that people who are trying to create their lives perfectly. He states” the public is a number which is not only expressed in curves but which is bombarded with curves.” He is saying that the consumers are nothing but a bell curve that consistently change and the advertisements need to be focused on them so they have to change with it. The women on the cover looks like a mannequin or like a mail order bride but not the real kind the “Lars and the Real Girl” kind of mail order. The girl on the cover, I’ll call her Martha, she is the perfect Stepford wife that every guy wants and every girl wants to be. Martha is there to make the consumer want the product because if it’s good enough for the perfect person, it’s good enough to make you good enough.
I would call my book “Meet the Perfects” and the cover would be of the ideal perfect family with the black haired lawyer dad, the blonde doctor mommy, the football star son, and the academic daughter, all smiling like the have the best life ever. They would look like they lived in the now so they are the family everyone wants to become. They are all involved in all the community activities and they have the perfect life. It’s the modernized version of the 50’s perfect family because ever with the years changing people still dream of the life like that and it shows in advertisements. The only difference is that mommy also has a job and is just as successful as her husband because female power gets more attention these days. And dinner still gets on the table at a reasonable time all warm and tasty.
Kaitlyn Murray
TA Kate Brandt
In Marshall McLuhan's book The Mechanical Bride, she speaks of how in advertising today every thing is made to seem perfect. And you will only be perfect if you have the same item, or look. Thats why on her cover it is a 'perfect' looking bride. Perfect in the sense that she is 'perfect' in only the ways advertising agents have deemed what is to be perfect or not. Apparently everything that makes us unique and truly beautiful and original. Are not perfect, and they need to be masked with conformity by buying mass amounts of goods, and services.
If I were to write a book on the same subject today, I would call it "Fear + Consumption=Profit: America's Advertising Algorithme" Because in the modern day advertising world, it is no longer just agents you advertise to the consumer culture. Its the media in general, back by the government and other large corporations and organizations that hold strong interests in what we buy, and sell. For the picture on the cover I think I'd have some sort of satirical picture showing resemblance between fear and our cultural consumption of everything feed to us. I don't really know what kinda of image could convey that idea though.
-Marco Cannestra
TA: Kate
1) Marshall McLuhan’s Article The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man examines the advertising methods of primarily the late 40’s and reflects on the impact had it has on viewers. McLuhan’s argument covers many different advertisements, but the picture on the cover of his book illustrates one of the most dominant types with the idea of the “Love-Goddess Assembly Line” and “The Mechanical Bride.” He explains the connection between the “…image of sex, technology, and death which constitutes the mystery of the mechanical bride” (McLuhan 101). Advertisements are all designed for the purpose of pushing a product or service but McLuhan does a great job bring forth the messages that these advertisements can have, intentional or unintentional. “As such, her legs are not intimately associated with her taste or with her unique self but are merely display objects like the grill work on a car” (McLuhan 98). Now whether or not this is the message that the ad designers were going for it is how young man and women absorbing these ads often read them. He talks about the idea that woman think that they have to have the perfect ‘mannequin-like’ legs and body to attract men. But in reality is this really the imagery that we want women and men to associate with success and satisfaction?
2) On the other hand if we turned the ideas and arguments of McLuhan analysis onto advertisements of the late 2000’s nothing has gotten matter but merely worse. The connections of sex, power, technology, and danger with modern advertisement are more evident in today’s media then ever before. If I were going to apply McLuhan’s book and style to today’s media it would be called “The More the Merrier” because that is all that we are surrounded by. Companies are push the ideas that the more ‘things’ you have the more power you obtain. The picture on the cover of my book would be me sitting on top of a mountain of electronics, cloths, cars, etc with a caption of me saying “I’m better then you.” I feel this would be a great representation of today’s advertising messages.
Kirk McCamish
T.A. Steve Wetzel
Advertisements are constantly creating the illusion of problems that can only be solved through consumption. These ads are further fueled by human’s natural desire of “safe” conformity. In this way, everyone becomes the same “cut out” driven by the media’s set standards. The Mechanical bride refers to the commercial conformity of the populous. “What makes a gal a good number is simply looking like a number of other gals. What’s the trick that makes her click? The answer is being a replaceable part.” The idea that the media has made human beings into statistics and a series of marketable components (legs, hair, etc) has thereby made them mechanical. Also, the marriage of sex, technology, and death for use in advertisements represent the driving force behind the media’s power of persuasion. Thus, the term mechanical bride refers to women in particular and their “mechanical” conformist attributes that are influenced though their marriage with the media (‘till death do they part). Through the “dream tunnel of conformity…Girls become intoxicating dates when they are recognizable parts of a vast machine.” Subsequently, the image displayed on the cover of The Mechanical Bride is the visual representation of the title.
If I were to write a book to represent advertisement today, it would be called Tabula Rasa (meaning empty slate) and the image would consist of a silhouette figure of a person being bombarded by T.V.s, posters, and computers telling him/her to buy. Today more than ever people allow the media to socialize every aspect of their lives. In a world where technological advancements have allowed media to influence us daily, the collective conscience is also curbed. Thus, the media decides what’s acceptable to do, wear, have, etc. if you want to be like and fit in with your peers. Very few people decide what to do based on their own beliefs or tastes. Not to say that their beliefs and tastes haven’t already been predetermined by media influence.
Here is a link to my book cover: https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/katerzy2/public/extra/book.jpg
[Garrett Katerzynske]
[Witzling]
The advertisement in the late 40’s was all about the ideal. Pretty girls, clean-cut men and symbols of wealth graced the pages of ads in newspapers. The images are used to stimulate the viewer and provoke the reader into buying the product. When writing about an advertisement for lather shave including an image of a pretty girl, McLuhan explains, “The average male educated in and by this environment tends to be not so much conscious of distinct physical and intellectual objects as he is of a variable volume of registered excitement within himself.” Young men are drawn-in and intrigued by the thin, beautiful woman and, therefore, study the advertisement where as they otherwise would have passed it by. McLuhan argues that companies use these unrealistic yet stimulating images in order to better sell their products and, in turn, shapes the values of society.
Fast-forwarding to the 2000’s, advertising has broadened slightly. Companies still use symbols representing “the ideal,” but other companies prefer to show images of “the everyday” man or woman. Along with adding comedy, beer commercials especially like to appeal to the everyday man. Miller, for instance came out with a commercial in 2006 which featured a variety of men sitting around a table discussing the average man’s common issues and forming the ever popular phrase “man law.” For example, one of the debates included a discussion of how long a man can wait to date his best friend’s ex-girlfriend. Actors around the table featured a variety of men young and old and of all different professions. If I had to pick an image to represent the advertising of the 2000’s it would be of the scene featured in the commercial. With two million television ads from 2001 to 2007, beer commercials are common in this day and age.
Alison Korth
T.A. Laura Bennett
One of the most important parts of all (at least most) advertisements is the fact that they don't have to necessarily tell the whoole truth about the product they are pushing. It is an expected custom to present the product a little better than the customer will get it. Food always looks delicious and hygiene products will immediately cause the opposite sex to flock in your direction. In "The Mechanical Bride", while McLuhan is speaking of body oder in the chapter "How Not to Offend" he mentions this custom. "Pages could be filled with familiar items like "Kissing is fun when you use..." roand "Keep daintier for dancing this way," and "Their lost harmony restored by..." and "Use FRESH and be lovelier to love." All of these phrases lead the consumer to believe that that particular product will single handedly solve their problems, to believe that that particular product will grant them a perfect existence. This is where I see a large connection to "The Mechanical Bride" cover. The women presented looks beyond human, almost too perfect, like a life size Barbi. She has the veil, which runs with the "Bride" theme, another phase of life that many look upon as an ultimate achievement as well. She has a very common manufactured look, like you would see her picture under "Woman" in a grade school science book.
If I were to write an advertisement book of my own for today's day and age, I would have to name it "Show Me The Steak or Give Me A Break" and would have a Farside-like picture of a cow sitting in a lazy boy with it's feet kicked up, a glass of iced booze and a big cigar utterly loving life. This would hopefully bring the connection of how consumers are falsely led to believe something is gone to be better than it turns out to be. I know the whole cow idea doesn't make thaat much sense, but I figured that it could loosely represent the fact that fast food hamburgers always look bigger and better in the ads than they are in real life. There is less meat in the ones we are actually buying, so less cows have to worry about their well being and can relax. A little out there, but effective nonetheless. The whole "misleading fast food" concept is an excellent example for my post. It is really the ultimate American deception, and has only grown worse over the years with innovations such as Dollar Menus, where the pictures are bigger and the food is smaller. Hey Bessie, relax. It's not your time just yet.
One of the most important parts of all (at least most) advertisements is the fact that they don't have to necessarily tell the whoole truth about the product they are pushing. It is an expected custom to present the product a little better than the customer will get it. Food always looks delicious and hygiene products will immediately cause the opposite sex to flock in your direction. In "The Mechanical Bride", while McLuhan is speaking of body oder in the chapter "How Not to Offend" he mentions this custom. "Pages could be filled with familiar items like "Kissing is fun when you use..." roand "Keep daintier for dancing this way," and "Their lost harmony restored by..." and "Use FRESH and be lovelier to love." All of these phrases lead the consumer to believe that that particular product will single handedly solve their problems, to believe that that particular product will grant them a perfect existence. This is where I see a large connection to "The Mechanical Bride" cover. The women presented looks beyond human, almost too perfect, like a life size Barbi. She has the veil, which runs with the "Bride" theme, another phase of life that many look upon as an ultimate achievement as well. She has a very common manufactured look, like you would see her picture under "Woman" in a grade school science book.
If I were to write an advertisement book of my own for today's day and age, I would have to name it "Show Me The Steak or Give Me A Break" and would have a Farside-like picture of a cow sitting in a lazy boy with it's feet kicked up, a glass of iced booze and a big cigar utterly loving life. This would hopefully bring the connection of how consumers are falsely led to believe something is gone to be better than it turns out to be. I know the whole cow idea doesn't make thaat much sense, but I figured that it could loosely represent the fact that fast food hamburgers always look bigger and better in the ads than they are in real life. There is less meat in the ones we are actually buying, so less cows have to worry about their well being and can relax. A little out there, but effective nonetheless. The whole "misleading fast food" concept is an excellent example for my post. It is really the ultimate American deception, and has only grown worse over the years with innovations such as Dollar Menus, where the pictures are bigger and the food is smaller. Hey Bessie, relax. It's not your time just yet.
Garrett Hopkins
TA: Kate
The relationship between McLuhan's argument and the image on the book's cover is connected through what Marshall McLuhan says in the reading. He states that "some boys fall in love with the expression on a gal's face." However, he uses the face of a woman dressed as a bride. The woman has her eyes closed and no expression on her face. It shows that her eyes do not matter, along with the expression. We tend to mold people into an ideal person, even if it means sacrificing their true beauty. In the modern world, if we do not like how a person appears or even ourselves, we then change those "flaws" with "mechanical parts."
The title of my book would be "Selling Lies and Garbage: Be Like Everyone." The image that I would put on the cover is a garbage bag with a doctor next to it. This would symbolize what a person has to do or go through in order to fit in society today. Also, it would symbolize the "garbage" advertisers try to sell you to make money.
Erik Wagner
T.A. Steve Wetzel
In my opinion, McLuhan uses this particular photograph for the cover of his book for a few reasons. The bride appears to be a mannequin of some sort or perhaps even a robot. By suggesting that this bride is a robot, or a mechanical invention, the cover projects the idea of how advertising at the time of the book’s publication often centered around the ideas of sex and mechanics. By connecting the two, seemingly unrelated ideas “the body gets linked with the desires, sexual and otherwise, for mechanical power” , although in the case of the book’s cover, I feel the idea of mechanical power is being linked to the idea of sexual desires. The bride will soon have sex, therefore by making the bride look mechanical or robotic, one’s brain immediately and possibly unconsciously links sex and technology, and advertising tactic used often both around the book’s publication and currently. Also, I feel the picture was chosen for another reason relating back to McLuhan’s book. In his book he discusses at length the advertisement of personal hygiene products. The advertisement of such products around the time of the books publishing was done in such a way as to suggest that “when the hideous sector of bodily odor looms, all human ties are cancelled”. McLuhan writes about how advertisers promoted their hygiene products by insinuating that natural body odor would lead to social isolation. The bride on the cover of the book refers to this aspect of McLuhn’s writing in that a robotic or mechanical female would not posses any unsightly odors and would always remain “dainty and fresh” as the ideal woman should.
If I were creating the artwork for a new book about advertising I would use the image of a racial ambiguous yet commercially (sexually) attractive female. The title of the book would be “Because We Must”. While I don’t think much as changed in the world of advertising since the days of McLuhan’s publishing concerning the use of sex and mechanics and the fear of social isolation there are a few additions. I would choose a female face for the obvious sex appeal. The ambiguity of the face refers to the advertising community’s current desire to appeal to all races and backgrounds of consumers. Now a days almost all commercials have some semblance of racial integration. I would use the title “Because We Have To” in reference to the fact that currently a lot of advertising utilizes scare-tactics to sell products. Similar to the “cult of hygiene” that McLuhan refers to, now we are inundated with pharmaceutical and other ads that grab viewer interest by imply an impending doom if the product is not sought out.
Lisa Casper
Steve Wetzel
In McLuhan's book, The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of an Industrial Man, he describes how the people in our society are shaped and sculpted by advertising. They are molded and made helpless by media. He exemplifies this by stating that a whole business has arisen whose soul purpose is,"to get inside the collective public mind". The cover of McLuhan's book relates to this argument because the image on the cover show's a bride that looks completely emotionless and stereotypical of what most would define as the perfect bride. It shows a bride who is unconscious of the fact that she is just like every other bride. When looking further into the article the reader realizes that this stereotypical image is in fact a perfect portrayal of McLuhan's argument. The bride is an example of a woman on the receiving end of this new business. If I were to write a book describing advertising in the late 2000's it would be titled, Mechanical Consumption: Why NOT Use More?, because to me it seems like all advertising today is urging us to get more no matter what. Advertisers realize they have already sold us everything they possible could so now they just sell us more off it and tell us our old stuff is not good enough. The image on the front of this book would show a seemingly infinite number off people waiting in line to enter an unmarked retail business. The business would remain anonymous because it could potentially be replaced by any number off businesses from around the world.
Nick LaVake
T.A. Laura Bennett
McLuhan’s argument is centered on the idea that advertisements reach out to manipulate consumers by giving them images of “perfect” people or “flawless” products and convincing them that these products will make them prettier more likeable. The “mechanical bride” on the front represents that “perfect” consumer, the one that has benefited from all of the products advertized. She always smells nice and she always looks beautiful and she keeps her husband happy. McLuhan pretty much sums up the “perfect” housewife of the 40’s and 50’s when he quotes a personal hygiene ad discussing how a housewife needs to “safeguard her daintiness in order to protect precious married love and happiness.” There was so much pressure on the women of that era from advertisements, especially when television entered the picture because actual people were telling them to buy things through the magic box of the television set. When women see this image of a perfect wife, they change themselves into a sort of mannequin.
If I rewrote McLuhan’s book, I would name it “The Shrinking Brain” because people know that they’re being manipulated by the media, yet they let themselves be. The cover would be a family of mannequins sitting in front of a TV. They’d be bathed in the blue light from the TV screen with their blank faces and perfect wigs and clothes.
Megan Linner
TA: Laura Bennett
I found the perfect example for Marshall McLuhan's book within a Kodak ad on page 163. In the ad the first line of text states: "Whether soap's your product--or cereal or shoes--it needs a touch of the dramatic to become the people's choice."
Within this quote I found the very meaning of advertisement. To get people's attention through an ad one must dramatize their product. On the screen of the advertisement there is a dolled up women in a bubble bath. Three women show their backs to us as they look in interest at the screen. In the frame of the advertisement they are lower than the woman on screen and the woman is looking away from them. Perhaps this symbolic beauty is something that they strive to achieve. The fact that they did not put a man in this ad shows that they were going for a target audience and a message. They are also adding sexual appeal to anyone looking at this add., simplifying the woman to a sexual object. In this act we make the woman the product, this makes her materialistic and fake, we don’t think about the person.
Marshall Mcluhan seems to get this very same thing across on his cover. A very robotic woman with a vale has her head tilted up and her eyes closed. My interpretation is that by over dramatizing her she has become a product. This makes her an object and materialistic. She is fake looking, dollish, while still attempting to be something that is desired. When our desires become materialistic and mechanical, don’t we as well?
If you wanted an image for today to show this same message I wouldn’t show a person at all. I would show a computer. Many of us project our ideal selves over the internet by giving ourselves avatars and changing our personal information to fit an ideal person. A good example of people projecting themselves can be found in blogs like these. I believe we are products of our own design.
"There" is an online chat program that represents this perfectly.
Any one of the images on this page works, it is also an interesting article on the development of avatars if that sort of thing interests you.
http://blogs.parc.com/playon/archives/2006/03/a_nods_as_good.html
Kyle Jenkins
TA Kate Brandt
The cover of The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of an Industrial Man was a perfect picture to be on the cover of this book. It in includes the topics that he goes over such as females, body parts, and that people in society are shaped by the media. She looks flawless like it she is a face and not even a person, but just an object. he talks about sex and how objects of sex are used in the new technology of advertisements. Along side the flawless empty looking image of the women she still is portraying the seductive look on her face. Like he says about an image you are “abstracted from the body that gives them their ordinary meaning, they become “something more than sex,” a metaphysical enticement, a cerebral itch, and abstract torment.”
If I could write a book now in the 2000 century representing Mcluhan's model I would call it Another Ad? I choose this title because we are hit with hundreds upon thousands of ads a day may it be on the internet, driving home from work, or while watching some T.V. All of these ads are selling us products, ideas, and how “we” as society are supposed to act. On the cover of my book I would have a man in his recliner with all kinds shopping bags around him full of products, while looking at a solid wall of ads, thousands upon thousands. This is representing that all we do is see ads and tell us what to buy and how to act.
Brad Schiefelbein
TA: Laura Bennett
1.) McLuhan’s argument is that advertising exaggerates certain characteristics of the female body, producing a woman that is somewhat “mechanical” (I’m not meaning to restate the title). In talking about this concept through explaining how men are “surrounded by legs on pedestals”, McLahan quotes,
“Sex has been exaggerated by getting hooked to the mechanisms of the market and the impersonal techniques of industrial production” (McLuhan, 173, 3rd paragraph)
The woman on the cover looks beautiful, yet she is either a model with lots of makeup on, or she is made of clay or something. My point is she is not real. She doesn’t look real. But that’s how society views ‘beauty’ through these advertisements. True beauty, at least what is advertised as ‘true beauty’, is really just an industrialized representation of the real thing, and we confuse that for the real thing. People (woman in this instance) are never perfect, and in fact, perfection is not something that even exists to be measured by. This idea of perfection, of ‘beauty’, is brought on by the mechanical and industrial market, able to exaggerate whatever aspects of the human body and of sex they choose.
2.) Hot Sex Now.
I think of gum commercials, and how a guy will eat this certain piece of gum, and all the sudden some super hot chick will be making out with him. And that’s the commercial. I don’t know where exactly gum became associated with sex, but it creates this impression that everyone should be having hot sex all the time. So my picture is of a man and woman with a cool blue ocean behind them about to make out. And it is inferred that they both just had a refreshing piece of gum.
Chris Schasse
Section 401:807
Kyle Probst
In McLuhans book, “The Mechanical Bride,” He takes a look into the advertising industry’s manipulative nature towards consumerism. The picture on the cover of the mannequin bride relates to his ideas about women always striving for that perfect look. The bride is emotionless, her facial structure is perfect, and there is noticeable beauty in the face. The mannequin is also not alive, which relates to McLuhans ideas about women treating their bodies as machines rather human. “To the mind of the modern girl, legs, like busts, are power points which she has been taught to tailor, but as parts of the success kit rather than erotically or sensuously.” Women are constantly looking for the next best product. The reason women see themselves this way is because of the advertisements manipulative ways. The images of perfect bodies that they see make them believe that they too must look and act like this “perfect body”.
I think that as time has gone by, our advertisements have gotten worse and consumerism has increased exponentially. If I were to write a book that relates to McLuhans, I would call it “Consumerism and Idiocracy”. I use the term idiocracy to define a nation of people that constantly give into the advertisements and over consume without any realization of how they have done so. Maybe a cover of a herd of sheep would fit (much like the Tommy Hilfiger parody ad) to reiterate how everyone goes with the crowd. Women will always go for that next beauty product that is advertised to “reduce wrinkles” or go on that diet and workout plan that will give you a body like Jessica Simpson; anything to come ever so closer to that impossible “perfect” look that has been portrayed for so long.
Kyle Probst
In his book “The Mechanical Bride”, Marshall McLuhan examines different articles different advertisements in hopes that people will look at the deeper and various meanings of those ads and how they affect and shape our society. McLuhan identifies that in ads there is a “widely occurring cluster [of] image[s] of sex, technology, and death”, all three of which are exemplified in the image of the mechanical bride. The women that appears on the front of McLuhan’s book is somewhat angelic, corpse like and expressionless all at the same time. This expressionless coupled with the word ‘mechanical’ in the title, gives the reader the impression that she is a robot. McLuhan points out that ads lead us toward social conformity by telling everyone that the only way they will be sexy or fit in is to use their product, thus making the consumers into robots.
If I were to write about advertisements in the present day, I would call my book “The Shock Precedes the Buzz”. This title stems from the fact that advertisers goal today is to shock people with the images that the show enough to get them to talk about it and there by create word of mouth buzz for the product as well. Even if someone is offended by the ad or thinks it is ridiculous, they are still likely to go talk to someone about it. I would make a collage of some of the most shocking ads for the cover of the book which would not only grab peoples attention as the ads are meant to do, but point out how many ads don’t serve to promote the features of their product but are instead only used to make us stop, wonder, and hopefully remember the name.
Lanae Smith
TA: Steve Witzling
The cover picture of Marshall McLuhan’s “The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man” features a human figure with doll-like features such as deep eye-sockets and plastic hair all dressed up in a bridal gown. This image can be related to the arguments he makes within, that we are all just dolls being told what to believe by the media and particularly advertisements. “Ours is the first age in which many thousands of the best-trained individual minds have made it a full-time business to get inside the collective public mind.” The point is that there are companies filled with people trained to figure out how you tick and how they can use that knowledge to their advantage. If I was to write a new book based on this one but for the new millennium I would call it “Pay No Attention to the Men Behind the Curtain”. The cover would have people with helmets with screens on them to show them whatever they wanted to see to keep them happy and thinking the way whoever is in charge of it wants the people to think. I believe that in today’s society we are influenced so much by what is practically force-fed down our throats from advertisements. I can’t walk 10 feet without seeing something to join this or come see that. It’s ad nausea with a brain.
Nelson Schneider
TA: Kate Brandt
In "The Mechanical Bride", Marshall McLuhan discusses the correlation between mid twentieth century advertising and social-cultural ideologies. He argues that advertising has been brainwashing the public by creating images and slogans that dictate the aesthetics of a proper life. Simultaneously these ads are merely clever marketing schemes to sell product. He feels that there is a strong relationship between industry and the unconscious mind. One example depicts an ad of a woman seemingly drowning in "anguish" because of her feminine hygiene (p.61). Apparently no man will desire her unless she heeds the ad's grim warning. Another ad compares the allure of a woman's presence to a Buick convertible. McLuhan asserts that this comparison allows a man to treat his machines like his women, gazing upon them with awe and pride of ownership. In a clever quip at the opening of the chapter "Love-Goddess Assembly Line", McLuhan writes, "Did you notice the Model-T bodies of the women in that rivived 1930 movie last night?" (p.93). The phrase is rich in sarcasm, stating that as technology progresses fashion must follow. McLuhan's concept of a "Mechanical Bride" comes as a warning to the public; especially those who are easily influenced by advertisement images and slogans. Although it is the primary goal of industry to sell product, the profits will come at the expense of creating a homogeneous race of female consumers. "To the mind of the modern girl, legs, like busts, are power points which she has been taught to tailor, but as parts of the success kit rather than erotically or sensuously... her legs are not intimately associated with her taste or with her unique self but are merely display objects like the grill work on a car" (p.98). McLuhan's "Mechanical Bride" is no different than an automobile, or any machine, in it's assembly line conception, universal appearance, and overall simple function.
If I were to imagine a text similar to McLuhan's for the present day, the title would be "iYou". The cover would be of an animatronic iPod, with a face on the screen, arms, legs, etc. The symbol would be meant to imply that we are slowly becoming our personal electronic effects.
-Nick Westfahl
TA: Steve Wetzel
The image on the cover of Marshall McLuhan's book "The Mechanical Bride" proves his points. The bride on the cover is in a robotic state in that she doesn't have a mind of her own. She is not a human being that can think rather she is an object that is meant to look pretty and not speak. This robot doesn't have any imperfections because it is not real. McLuhan says that advertisements were trying to make people believe they could be perfect to if they bought their products.
If I were to give a title that would represent todays advertisements it would be “Nip Tuck Advertisements”. Ads today are so fake and all they're doing is trying to is get you to buy their product. They're trying to mold American's into this perfect 'plastic doll' mode. They sell things that we really don't need but feel we need them so we can fit in.
Sara Nesbitt
Kate Brandt
McLuhan’s comparison between the cover image of The Mechanical Bride and his arguments is mostly in the chapters “The Mechanical Bride” and “Love-Goddess Assembly Line”. In these chapters, he states that society has a certain image of the ideal woman, and that advertising strives to push that image onto everyone. Conformity is the issue here. “Achieve beauty by looking like everyone else – and buy our product” is what the ads say to us. The women portrayed in these ads are “…hot numbers, slick numbers, Maxfactorized, streamlined, synthetic blondes – these are at once abstract and exciting.” The robot bride on the cover portrays this plastic, cookie-cutter beauty. Through society’s conditioning, women and men alike are taught to adore this ideal of beauty, and desire to both be it (for a woman) and have it (for a man). From a man’s perspective, “…to be seen in public with these numbers is a sure sign that you are clicking on all cylinders.” From a woman’s perspective, the ads say that to be a worthwhile human being, you must look like this stylized ideal – and join the masses in doing so. In 1943, Cecil B. DeMille noted a troubling trend in young Hollywood actresses. He said that many of the young women would come into show business with their natural, distinct looks, but they would all be groomed into looking the same in the end (McLuhan, p. 96). That trend still holds today, and it extends much further than Hollywood. The image of ideal beauty is seen every day, in our magazines, TV, and movies. It’s cookie-cutter beauty, something mass-produced like robots, designed in some far-off office by people with influential power.
The title of my book would be “Beauty IS Only Skin Deep.” Advertising today is not much different than in the 40’s, but it’s more amplified now. We are constantly bombarded by images whose sole purpose is to make us feel badly about ourselves. The unachievable, airbrushed beauty of the models tells us to think “I’m not a worthwhile person because I don’t look like that. If I get that product, maybe I’ll be better.” As we slowly buy into these sales pitches, our outlooks change. We start seeing ourselves as only images to be judged or admired, forgetting about our brains, personalities, and talents. McLuhan says it perfectly: “The smartly turned-out girl walks and behaves like a being who sees herself as a slick object rather than is aware of herself as a person.” That’s what happens when we place so much importance on superficial things like looks and forget about what truly makes us beautiful.
Bethany Davey
TA: Kate Brandt
"A most necessary contrast to 'raging animality' is that a girl should appear gentle, refined, aloof, and innocent." Here Mcluhan describes the "perfect" woman as portrayed in an ad for Berkshire stockings. The bride on the cover of the book seemingly posses all of these qualities of a "flawless" woman. Mcluhan argues that all of these advertisements are selling us images of perfection and telling us what supposedly is and isn't acceptable. This creates a society based on monotonicity, where everybody strives for this "perfection" that is being sold to them. All of the women want to be the woman from the ad, and the men want to be married to said woman. Through the image on the cover, Mchluhan implies that we are all becoming programmed to work like drones for this false image of perfection, so we too can be, or be married to, the 'ideal' woman who is "gentle, refined, aloof, and innocent."
If I were to write a book that would represent advertising in the late 2000's I would title it "Perfection and Happiness, only $$$ Away". The image would be of a young man or woman at the checkout counter of a store. In his cart would be such items as cologne, clothing items, a new nose, a pair of muscular arms, and a new super model wife. Advertisements try to sell ideas like with this certain type of cologne you will automatically be able to pick up super models, and thus you will be forever happy. (Watch any commercial for Axe body spray and you will know what I am talking about) More and more, we are bombarded with the idea that we can buy happiness via expensive cars, fancy clothes, shiny jewelery, and tons of other unnecessary accessories, and this is why the cover of my book would portray a consumer essentially purchasing his own happiness.
Forrest Falconer
T.A. Steve Wetzel
1. Marshall McLuhan argues, in "The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man”, that the media is dominated by specific ideologies of technology, sex, and power. He argues that advertising media aims to control and exploit the people as a collective population. McLuhan makes note of “the interfusion of sex and technology” during the stretch of time that he is writing about (the late 1940s). He writes, “It is not a feature created by the ad men, but it seems rather to be born of a hungry curiosity to explore and enlarge the domain of sex by the mechanical technique, on one hand, and, on the other, to possess machines in a sexually gratifying way.” Similar to machines, women were expected to conform to the standards that the advertising media and media in general created for them. In this manner, women then were reduced to becoming more and more like each other and were encouraged to stay away from “patterns which are alien to its [a certain culture’s] dominant impulses and aspirations." The cover image, then, is a perfect representation of McLuhan’s argument. The female mannequin is shown to be robot-like, expressionless, and quite ordinary much like women were expected to be in the late 1940s.
2. If I were to write a new book based on McLuhan's model to represent advertising in the late 2000s, I would title it "The Selling of the Body". I would create a collage of different fast foods within an outline of a body in order to pay close attention to the growing rate of obesity in today's culture.
Marisela Rodriguez Gutierrez
TA: Steve Wetzel
McLuhan argues that the system of advertisement causes people to be aware of everything that is considered “wrong” with them Advertisements always come up with new products and try to sell them to the public by making the product a necessity. The Cover shows a woman with a well proportioned, plastic like, face, in a veil which is an example of how advertisements critques us. This photo suggests that only women with faces similar to this image, are marriage material and if you don’t look like this you’re not normal. Just like hysteria of hygiene that advertisements create by making the customer feel as if they have to have the newest toothpaste or body fragrance or else… “The question remains as to what is being loved, that gal or that soap?” (CR,p.150)
If I were to write a new book the title would be, “ 15 seconds of Fame, show us what you got!” And the cover would feature a collage of young people’s party pics, facebook, youtube, and myspace logos, txt phrases like: OMG idk wat 2 wear 2nite! , and designer labels and a few pics of fashion trends of the late 2000’s. I think these images represent a huge population of the young people today and I think that a lot of us act as if we’re on a reality show because of the amount of technology and media we’ve been exposed to. All of these images can symbolize this era because it’s something we see constantly. These images will be presented as a collage because it’s represents our multi-tasking lifestyle and our somewhat self -centered ways. A lot of us have a thousand pictures on facebook, unlimited texting or a few “top model” pictures or youtube videos.
Venise Watson
David W
When I look at the picture of the bride on the cover, I see no emotion on her beautifully made up face. The emotionless look says it all for McLuhan's argument. It reminded me of "The Stepford Wives," the way the bride was like a robot. It advertizes the image of the perfect housewife as one who is a beautiful shell and has no inner emotion. The consumer audience plays its own part as well by deeming it a socially acceptable persuit to indulge in mere lust and emotionless pornography. A pornography that is deeply embedded in mordern media. The effects it has on the consumer are monumental. It drives us to feel the need to buy things that we don't need, and it does it with a certain intimidation.
Jack Kirby
TA Laura Bennet
Marshall McLuhan's main concept was the idea that advertisers exploit the fact that society is drawn to beauty and perfection and use it to attract a large audience and to sell a given product. McLuhan's argument goes along with the image displayed on the blog because the woman pictured looks flawless. Her skin and everything is so perfect that she almost looks porcelain. Like the title The Mechanical Bride, it's as if she is a robot, such as in the movie The Stepford Wives. McLuhan wrote, “…her legs are not intimately associated with her taste or with her unique self but are merely display objects..." The advertisement is selling her body rather than who she is, or better yet, what the product is that is being sold.
If I were to title a book representing advertising in the 2000's, it would have to be something involving the word plastic. Mechanical sounds so outdated and this is the age of plastic surgery. Instead of the bride, it could be a celebrity such as Joan Rivers, and this could be the cover:
http://celebritysurgery.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/joanriversdm2005_468x423.jpg
Derek Reilly
The picture of the mechanical bride on the cover of the book illustrates McLuhan's point in his book. That we as humans have become mechanical like in our actions and in way of looking at things. In the section of the book that is titled The Mechanical Bride, he talks about how people become machines in their lives because that is what we work with in our lives. Such as how "a great swordsman, horseman, or animal-breeder was expected to take on some of the character of his interests". What McLuhan is basically saying is that we are all machine like in our mannerisms.
If a new book was to be created I believe it would be titled Trickery and Propaganda through the use of celebrities. I would put an image of the Hollywood sign on the cover of the book. The reason for this is because now days a lot of things are advertised through celebrity endorsements. Yet even in some cases celebs come out with there own products or sign their name and image to be put on said items. Then the celebs name is used in an almost propagandas way to sell the item. Take Hannah Montana whose face was everywhere to sell everything from bad wigs to horrible tasting candy. But kids had to have it cause Hannah was on it. The same goes for movies. There are so many endorsements in movies these days they become one giant commercial. Such as the movie you've got Mail. It was a giant ad for AOL at the time. This is why the Hollywood sign would be the best, because it is the international symbol for the movie/actor industry.
kate
Rory Petry
“This visual and not particularly voluptuous character of commercially sponsored glamour is perhaps what gives it so heavy a narcissistic quality.”
-McLuhan
The cover of “The Mechanical Bride” is one of almost sadistic sexual exploitation. The young woman on the cover is in a pose of dehumanizing quality. With her eyes closed and chin up she becomes a symbol of great sexual enjoyment. Her face itself is unimportant and irrelevant. With such a generic beauty and ideal iconic features of the time she is not a woman, she is a object and she knows it. Her eyes playing a key role in her immoral immortality, shut off from the world, shut off from life, shut of personal infliction. The sad part is the objectiveness of woman portrayal during the 40’s and 00’s would and isn’t that big of a change. You would see the momentary trends. The lack of timeless beauty makes for a incoherent effort in best representing our current advertisement. Sex sells, sex will forever sell. Sex has the more power than the president in our day to day lives. If I had my own book to represent the times advertisement it would sport a scantily dressed Tyra Banks on the cover. It would be called sex. Then I can guarantee people would pick it up and read it.
The idea of the title and cover of "The Mechanical Bride" is very interesting. During the 1940s women were treated with far less respect than today, often times being thought of as an object. This connects to the artificial nature of the Mechanical Bride. We thought of our wives as something we could tweak and buy things to upgrade. A statement such as "Use FRESH and be lovelier to love" implies that only with the product in question will your machine, uh, I mean wife, will be complete.
I would call my book Digital Money, Money, Money, and on the cover there we be a ton of money with digital lettering for the amounts. Today we've moved beyond tangible appliances as our main advertisement ploy. Now we push the development and mass pressure marketing to buy electronics and information or digital files and all the money is filtered through some sort of electronic system. We are a slave to electronic banking just as the bride is to her gold stripe stockings.
Kyle E Smith
TA: Laura
McLuhan argues that the similarities between machines and people, particularly the image society expects women to live up to, are getting more and more the same. They have essential working, attractive parts that draw the man in. He compares cars and car parts, such as spark plugs, to those parts of a woman, such as her legs, hips, and bust. To obtain high social status on the road, one must own an attractive, flaunting car, one that resembles the expectations of society. Same with a girl. "'What makes a gal a good number?' is simply 'looking like a number of other gals'" with the right features of big hips, small waist, plump lips, and so on. Thus, the mechanical bride. A bride that resembles a majority of other women, as though they were all just shipped out from a factory assembly line, like a car.
If I were to make a book about advertising and technology in the 2000s, I would call it "And You Don't Even Have to Try Anymore." Although, I think "The Mechanical Bride" could work as well. Technology these days makes our lives so much easier, it's like we don't even have to put much effort out anymore. I think a strong example of that is with beauty products. Instead of going to the gym and working out you thighs, you can just rub some tightening cream on to get rid of your cellulite, and you don't even have to get off the couch to do it! The ipod saves you the trouble of inserting another cd into your cd player. Plastic disposable water bottles prevent you from having to wash out a cup. Everything is there so you don't have to work for what you want (once you buy the product of course). The image I would have as my book cover would be of a person sitting on a couch watching tv surrounded by mechanical tools that let them stay on the couch but still getting things done. Things such as an ipod hooked up to a sound system, a remote control for the tv, the person calling for food to be delivered right to their door, diet pills so they can burn off the food they're going to eat, energy drinks so they don't have to exercise to get energy, and other products as such. I think those products serve as symbols of how American culture focuses on entertaining themselves and leaves "work" to simple products so they don't have to "waste" time.
The picture on the front cover is that of a store mannequin that is then dressed in a wedding gown. The woman looks very robotic and emotionless, however physically she is "perfect". The illustration agrees with McLuhan's arguments within the book. The mannequin is gives this idea of perfection. That is essentially what a mannequin is; there are no flaws on a mannequin. Which is what was being advertising in the 40s. McLuhan discusses in the book how images of perfection are placed in front of a women and that is what makes them start thinking of their body parts as mechanics rather than just the body parts. McLuhan states, “To the mind of the modern girl, legs, like busts, are power points which she has been taught to tailor." I think that this quote is basically saying that if a women works hard enough she can end up looking like this idealistic mannequin in the stores she shops at.
If I were to write a new book for the 2000s the title of it would be "Don't lift a finger". I feel that as an American (keyword) society we have gotten really lazy. There is drive-thru everything so we don't have to step out of our car and walk. A lot of items are becoming equipped with voice activation, like cars, radios, and any other electronics really. I would say that these items are a smaller version of a full-blown robot, which easily could be around in the late 2000's to do everything for us. Just as Rosie the robot is portrayed in the Jetsons. She really does do everything for the family, and that cartoon is set in the future. With that being said I would say the image would be of a robot helping and doing something for an overweight lazy person who is just sitting there watching tv, or talking on their latest high tech phone.
Amber Blanchard
TA: David Witzling
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