Selling Youth Through Americana

This semester I asserted multiple ideas about America and the nature of advertising using images of America to sell products. I focused on the construction of youth and rebellion employed by advertisers. Why Johnny Can’t Dissent and The New Politics of Consumption: Why Americans Want so Much More Than They Need by Thomas Frank and Juliet Schor, respectively, address aspects of those ideas. However, I primarily focused on the asthetic and both Schor and Frank look beyond what is being constructed in advertising to the discrepancies between the image and real life. Schor focuses on the “ideology of noninterference” when it comes to consumption in America. Frank focuses on the appropriation of rebellion by Corporate America. This ad, from Kate Spade’s 2010 spring advertising campaign exemplifies the same ideas of leisure, rebellion, and negated wealth that I addressed in my first paper. In that paper I addressed constructing an image of the perfect youth through an idea of Americana. I think Schor would argue that the idea is cyclical. In Politics of Consumption she asserts, “Advertising, getting a bargain, garage sales, and credit cards are firmly entrenched pillars of our way of life.” It would therefore seem that the advertisers are not selling ideas of liberty or freedom, but rather the right to buy as much of their product as you like. No need to be concerned that you are selling out however: as Frank put it, “Corporate America is not an oppressor but a sponsor of fun,” and “consumerism is no longer about ‘conformity’ but about ‘difference." I think that Schor would be concerned that millions of Americans are comparing their status to the status of the woman in the ad and Frank would point out that every aspect of the model’s rebellion can be bought.