Gruen Transfer II

Last night Wil Anderson told us that the point of the program The Gruen Transfer is to provide a scalpel to the advertising industry to discover what is underneath. Apparently it is through his comic genuis that we will be given some cutting-edge social commentary. To me, the half-hour feels more like a free consultation by the advertising big-wigs who can tell us ‘what works and what doesn’t, and why’. Now, if the program was aiming to do this, to merely reiterate a range of stereotypes in adjudicating whether or not advertisements work, I would not take issue. But, we are promised more. We are promised some degree of critique and challenge, or at least this is how I read Andrew Denton’s comment (the program is bankrolled by Denton’s company):

“The Gruen Transfer is not so black and white…It’s not about whether advertising is good or evil. What we’re interested in is simple: how advertising works and what it says about us. I’ve always thought that advertising is an amazing and complex world. It deserves more attention than it usually gets from television, which is the ‘World’s Wackiest Commercials’ approach.” (Please see here for reference)

Agreed. But this show does not offer such an approach. It does not ask us to “unlearn” (I refer here to Denton’s quirky little ad – aired just before The Gruen Transfer – where he tells us he wants us to unlearn everything we think we know). As a tutor in cultural studies, i spend plenty of time teaching students about the semotics of advertising; I teach them about the social politics of representation, often discussing the gendered and racialised aspects of media in general, and advertising in particular. In the courses I teach on, we ask students to unlearn, to defamiliarise themselves with the representations and experiences they may take as natural, normal or common. Unlearning is often experienced as uncomfortable, as an affront, or critique of privilege (whether it be race privilege, gender privilge, class privilege etc), but it can also be incredibly invigorating, allowing students to see the world differently.

The Gruen Transfer does not promote such an ethos of unlearning. Perhaps it does not really aim to. Perhaps the format (a comedy program) is not compatible with such an agenda. Last night was no exception. A ten minute discussion of 4 WD drive ads merely reinforced gender determinism (men like big cars and rugged representations/women like softer versions to accommodate their growing family in the suburbs), and even included a charming little joke by Wil Anderson that one of the women in a particular 4WD ad looked like a butch lesbian mother (was that company targeting the butch lesbian market? Anderson asked). Anderson’s only critique came when he declared that the ads were crap (his problem seemed to be that they were unrealistic in their representation of masculinity). 4WD ads do posit an unrealistic version of masculinity, but they also draw on a representation of man as conquerer, dominant and powerful, able to tame the environment. This representation has cultural capital and influence.

The only interesting part of the show was the screening of an ad featuring the actress Emma Thompson. The ad is aimed at generating awareness about global sex trafficking and is extraordinarily graphic and confronting. Wil asked his expert panel if they thought the ad was successful, they each answered, either in teh affirmative or negative, but little more was offered.

I think my problem with this show is that it doesn’t recognise advertising as a powerful industry complicit in various forms of symbolic and material violence. It takes ads out of context or only wants to read them in partial context. It effects a sort of individualising, where each ad is taken separately. it doesn’t really seek to tell us what the ads tell us about gender, sexuality, race or politics at all in our times, or how advertising is political and does influence, consolidate and benefit from the reproduction of norms. Advertising doesn’t want us to ‘unlearn’ as this would undermine it too greatly. Having a concept for a show which involves a panel of employed advertisers probably isn’t going to give us this.