Advertisements images and elevated desires: cigarettes and anti-semitism (Zizek, 106-107)
Advertisements remind of commercials in between television shows. Trying to sell a product with agonising responses waiting for the show to return. Advertisements convey compelling slogans and visual imagery to entice the viewer to purchase the commodity. It is beyond the verbal tricks to the visual apprehension. Yet combined they order a propaganda of desire for the object. The commodity can be be in things and persons.
Mad Men is an acclaimed television series that follows the career of Don Draper, a respected salesman with an illustrious wile. His charm fits his build in seducing his clients and women into his clutches. The show paints him as a broken individual. The portrait of sales clarifies an irony of his pitches focusing on objects and not himself. He diverts attention by selling his abilities. His pseudonym is running away from his true nature. Assuming a new identity to be different. His image is advertised in the company’s headlines. His skill is on display, a spectacle over charisma to assume the room’s attachment. His respect falsified in a fake confidence for his own grace. The radiant immersion is a burdensome exploit. He has forgotten his old self. When his brother shocks sense back into him, he loses his mind. His escape brought him peace and a new beginning. He has become Don Draper but his actions demonstrate a subconscious crippling attitude. Unable to fully transition to Don Draper. He is Draper but he is not. The dialectic causes stress and depressive tendencies. His imbalance is an ontological crisis. He is a married man but a bachelor. A cheater due to his emotional distress and discomfort.
Draper uses pictorials for his clients. Matching catchy slogans with eye-popping illustrations. The goal is for the viewer to eat it up. Enamoured by the synthesis of a good line linked to a picture. What does the slogan evoke? A little ancient reworking here. The slogan is intentional. The illustration is an extension of the slogan to conjure the object to the slogan. The illustration is the prized object. The thing that makes the slogan operate. Without the object, the slogan is meaningless. The slogan does not work. Only this object can realise the slogan’s potential. The viewer links the two desiring the slogan. The catchiness is sly with remedial aspirations. A desire quenched by the object. Yet the desire does not enter the mind until the slogan is mentioned. The slogan is worded in a way the average Joe would not intend but its appeasement harasses the viewer. Illuminating that desire to the forefront of the mind. The slogan pampers to the viewer’s lust. The slogan hits point blank arousing feelings of expectations. Maybe that is something, the viewer would desire. A desire born of nothingness. The psyche pinpoints on the slogan’s remedy. The remedy traces back to a problem incurred in the viewer’s mind. His mind concentrated on a latent issue now a cure to the disease.
The power of the slogan seeks to capture a latent desire. A desire that seemingly only exists periodically if at all. Yet the slogan provides an axis whereby this is a thing. Either the viewer feels left out and creates the problem or the problem is minute. His frame of mind in both cases exacerbates the problem. His heart swayed by the catchy wording. A remedy to a damaged life. A way into the psyche of the viewer. A problem conjured but feeling real. A problem to be solved in one's very life. The object is the solution. It's painted on the page next to the slogan. So easy, the viewer is gifted the antidote. Don’t despair the hook has a hope. The viewer is not left pondering a problem. The slogan precedes to gather the attention and shape the situation. The object is the treasure thrown in the viewer’s face. Having seen the light, this can save the problem conjured minutes ago. Nothingness becomes a need. A very basic aspiration is promised. A way to up one’s game. A way to be better than before. For more status and game. Why turn away from it. The object is hanging right there. Quite inexpensive investment. The object is the answer. Follow through for a better life. The other responds in kind and the viewer is entrenched in this frame. He has been caught and plays into the hand.
Cigarettes are a dangerous vermin and yet many begin nonetheless. There is a cultural pattern that supersedes the dire consequences. There is much to say about this but going back to the fifties the advertisements were strong. Mad Men feeds into these. Draper’s client Lucky Strikes is his illusive pact. He spends time drawing up a playbook for their success. Painting them a picture of these advertisements and their success. The slogan captures the viewer’s interest into a problem that raises his emotional level. Cigarettes enhance his family life wow. The slogan itself latches onto the viewer’s psyche. Elevating his dopamine. Enamoured with the hope for better change. Beneath is an illustrative manual. Lucky Strikes helps reach that point. The image does its work of epitomising the lured viewer. Captivated by the slogan and caged by the image. The image is the object in use. An instructive guide of how it should look or what can be hoped. A desired aspiration that cradles the viewer in a loop of endless fantasies. Fantasies that culminate in an impassioned face red and hot. A desire uplifted in a hopeful tomorrow. The details of cigarettes or their ingredients are ignored for the fantastical element. The desire is overpowered and concentrated. It’s infatuation insidious to the viewer’s frontal lobe.
Nazi propaganda of the devilish Jew built on history of anti-semitic jargon and images. Propaganda embellishes the issue of the economy. Someone to blame. The Jew is the target and the miserable audience accepts this truth. Using deceptive tactics the public grows enraged at the minority who has surprisingly survived and lives isolated. Easily offended and attacked. A revenge polemic for their guised assistance. It was all corrupted efforts. Turning the sole possibility into a devilish trait. Moneylending, a single profession for Jews isolated by society was turned on its head. They chose this to harm society. They endeavoured to overthrow the masses. Using such slogans and then drawing pictures to depict this onslaught. Illustrating the deplorable acts of Jews in distasteful art. No evidence was necessary, a blame was. Depicting the Jew in his evil characterisation embellishing them for a sinister plot. Extending the nose with coins surrounding his devilish laugh. Despite the German liberalism, the preventative clause of the Weimar Republic lead to the deadly force. The slogans were modernised but with the same tropes. Infested in the pure German society needed to be isolated and eventually exterminated. The object of scorn is the Jew who is the easiest target. The slogan of his devilish actions are poignant in the illustration of his desires.
Advertisements are no longer pictures but videos. Videos of cigarettes display a mother dying of cancer. The impact is the illustrative story. A motion picture narrates the object. Something like flex seal. The commercial shows the object’s affect. A story is more than a catchy line. A video highlighting the essentials broadens the alert basis. Conveying a compelling plot line. A picture lacks context and fluidity. The commercial lines up the events that lead to death. The story is narrated imparting the the viewer the real danger of smoking. This is not just a cause and effect on a box. This is a driven home point. More emotional stressors is consequential to others. It is not a slogan but an elongated narrative. Smoking will lead to hospitalising and death. The visual graphic is troublesome. More than the pictorial on the box, the imagery is condensed consecutively. An image can be faked and flaunted. A motion picture is realistic. It is presenting the steps in the mirrored image. This is no longer a possibility, it is an inevitability. Commercials reflect the smoker’s eventual decline. The object of concern is the self preoccupied with the smoking habits. The dying patient is linked to the viewer. The viewer gasps at the future self dying. A horrific death portrayed in motion. The picture is foreign but the film is present. A real dilemma and a scary enterprise. Graphics sowed together deplore the smoker to quit.
Even more chilling than the simple reflection is the extra-consequential nature of death. The smoker is not solely enticed to quit by the inevitable death but the affect on others. A dying patient with family around. A picture representing a thousand words. More than just the reflection of the self is the surrounding variables. Family sorrow over decline. The motion picture enjoins the emotional response of the family. Smoking kills family. The person’s death can be written out by egocentric desires at worst and an uncontrollable addiction at best. The introduction of family. Of young children bereft of their mother. How miserable, how devilish. Live for the children. The selfish end to the smoker’s life includes the toll on the family. An onslaught of mental discomfort. Watching a mother smoke herself to death. Mirroring the plot line instils the offspring suffering. It is not a matter of principled integrity. Avoiding the packaging label or overlooking the harms stalls at the children’s emergence. Their cries and moans are a reality check to the smoker. The viewer sunk into smoking is torn over this and emotions overpower the addiction. Refraction is successful and the mirrored image erases the potential future. Shaken by the demise of the family unit and grief employed. A new path is taken away from the eventual disaster.
Commercials seek to override the addictive danger. Yet the exposure to the threatened does not excel in all realms. For smokers, their demise is overpowered by their desire for life. Yet this is not the case of anti-semitic issues. Videos to combat said problems are not universal nor are they accepted outright. There is no personal stake in the issue, simply a belief that employed in the realm. Participating in a historical polemic. Just as many didn’t aid the Jews against Hitler because they were not Jews, the same can be said of the anti-semitic tropes. The devil incarnated in the soul of the scapegoat. More firepower is provided to the Palestinian cause. Aspects genuinely attack the holistic framework of the Jew. Justification of skirmishes on the basis of a nation’s policy. The motion picture makes a dent in the frame game if the viewer is affected by the message. If the message is external with little personal gain there may be no change. Yet the Palestinian cause may gain an uproar of support given the empathetic stimulation to a juggernaut imbalance. The Jew has achieved Israel thus the empathic clause is muddled. If anything, it is the opposite. The anti-semitic comments hinge on the motion picture depicting an oppressed intensity. Arguments shallow with little movement to consider otherwise. A lack of identity finds the status quo relevant. The status quo persists in the historical animosity now empowered with the Palestinian plight.
Content creators on Youtube act quite similarly to commercials. While they do not possess the motion picture, they do travel beyond the pictorial on a billboard. Articulating the commodity on their program does magnify a face to face sales pitch. The video does expend a direct link to the viewer. The viewer feels the connection in the creator’s selling mechanism. Their monologues spent describing the sponsored commodity. At the close they provide a personal commitment to it. Mentioning their own use and enjoyment. Finalising with a link to the website with their new name for a discount. The sales pitch is personalised by the creator as an enjoyable commodity. Persuasion with their engagement reflects a trust between viewer and creator. The viewer enjoys the creator subscribing for more content. The creator’s ploy is a business tactic but the messaging is mirrored in earnest. The creator uses it, it must be good. The pitch is sharing advice. The sponsoring and persuasion techniques are overlooked for the creator’s gift to the viewer. Both parties take their commitments seriously. The viewer has faith that this aside is an honest gesture. The desire is pounced by the creator’s monologue. A fantasy emerging from nothingness. The viewer wished for the creator’s content. Diverting for a quick word throws the viewer off. Yet the explanation of the commodity in positive thoughts denotes the cause for the viewer. One he can buy and feel closer to the creator. The object of concern is the commodity’s linkage to the creator’s sponsorship.
Advertised content is to objectify the narrative. To find an affinity to the cause. Old ads still ring true. A billboard for a law firm with the number beneath inquires of a passerby to call if need be. Placed for exposure and for those in need to be stricken by the ethos of the title. Looking confident and accountable to assist. With people watching television, ads take the motion picture stage. Ads pop up all over websites. Finding ways to grab the viewer’s attention. The ability to stay away from ads: good and bad is highly difficult if not impossible. Even ad free websites find loopholes for small additions. Scrolling a page will spot random ads to catch amazement and desire. There is no prior thought. The ad cultivates a non-desire into a desired commodity. Look away quickly to not be charmed by its gaze. It is the catchy slogan with image personality that reels the viewer in. Look away quickly. The object of desire is that which is scanned upon lengthly. Eyes cannot avoid the ads but they can be trained to forget. The desire only maintains if the eyes focus on the ad. Focusing away from the ad can be of assistance. Focus on the article or skip the ad on the screen. Ads are energies thrown in the face for something to stick. Relaxing and concentrating elsewhere will surpass the visual encounter to a condensed acceptance of ad-less reading. The pandering ceased and stoic build firm.
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