The Gruen Transfer III

So I watched The Gruen Transfer again last night and I was pleasantly surprised at a couple of points. Where I felt there had been a complete lack of analysis in previous episodes, last night there were some remarks made out of passion (as opposed to defences of advertising made out of self-interest, something Russel Howcroft is especially prone to). The program took an “in depth” look at cosmetic products and cleansers in terms of how they are marketed and the use of the “magic ingredient” to lure consumers. But, just when I was starting to feel like the segment was going to simply be another collage of ads with a few jokes sprinkled in for good measure, the (token) female panellist (and the only one with guts! aside from Todd Sampson who often has interesting things to say) Jane Caro, forcefully criticised the role of advertising in reproducing low self-esteem for women, as well as setting an impossible standard of beauty which blatantly fails to recognise the process of aging. In fact, she made the claim that entire economies would collapse if women woke up in the morning and thought, fuck it, I am beautiful, I don’t need these expensive products to make me look more beautiful to the male gaze. Hetereonormative yes. But Caro introduced some actual content to the program and a short debate ensued about the degree of responsibility advertising has for the reiteration of low standards of self-esteem. Todd Sampson pointed out that advertising was merely part of the problem, not its cause, while Caro stood her ground implicating advertising as an industry as it benefits from praying on peoples insecurities. Russel Howcroft maintained his usual arrogance by claiming that well, advertising certainly doesn’t have its hands dirty here; it has nothing to do with low self-esteem, rather it is about “beauty” and the desire to be beautiful. Advertising simply enhances beauty.

I did, of course, have a couple of problems with both the frame of the debate and its limited political scope. Would it truly be radical to mention the gendered differences more explicitly? To perhaps even acknowledge the ways in which advertising is invested in maintaining patriarchal norms of femininity and masculinity? That these norms are changing, but that there are still significant political and ethical points to be discussed. Or would the word “patriarchal” result in the loss of all integrity by she or he who utters it? Would the inclusion of “patriarchy” introduce a structural dimension that is harder to mark, name and critique? Talk of structural violence, of institutionalised and dispersed forms of power informed by gender, race etc, have been replaced with the simpler model of the depoliticised neo-liberal, hyper-consumerist individual. Thus, it is not about self-esteem and how this relates to gender in a broader sense, even as some individuals may experience low self-esteem (but that’s only an individuals responsibility/fault).

I feel as though I am making really obvious feminist points here, yet they were absent from the program last night, even as some of these sorts of issues were raised.

-dredgirl