If you can muster the requisite courage under fire--the opening 10 minutes barrage the viewer with a relentless stream of discontinuous images and sound--you'll be rewarded by this incisive look at the history and status quo of advertising. Interweaving interviews with media critics Jean Kilbourne, Sut Jhally, Bernard McGrane, and Stuart Ewen, among others, with the requisite blizzard of clips from television commercials, The Ad and the Ego makes a few important points. The first is that contrary to being something that we all dismiss, advertising has a corrosive effect on the human psyche. As Ewen puts it, what you'll never hear in an ad is "you're ok." Quite the opposite, and as the word continues to give way to the image, the psychological model is becoming much simpler. Whereas advertising was formerly thought to work on a subconscious Freudian level, today's consumers are more like Pavlov's dog: ring a bell, buy the Nikes. The downside of all this is that neither our mental health nor our environment can withstand the long-term effects of rampant consumerism. A good examination of a vital topic. Recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)
The Ad and the Ego
(1996) 57 min. Public libraries: $49; Colleges & universities: $195. California Newsreel. PPR. Color cover. Vol. 12, Issue 2
The Ad and the Ego
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