By Inessa Kotkov

Linking Consumption to Stereotyping and Other Agendas

How do we break from obstacles in society to rebuild a new, healthy society?

Here are two texts I want to mention. One is by Jeffrey Kaplan, The Gospel of

Consumption and the other by Susan Sontag, A Photograph Is Not an Opinion. Or Is

It? Both texts are related on the issues in our society, such as consumption and

stereotype. According to Business Dictionary.Com consumption is expenditure during

period on goods and services. In other words, it is a way that resources are used to

satisfy peoples wants and needs. In the The Gospel of Consumption, Kaplan, the

author, mentions how the American foundation for consumption was laid. The scientific

and technological developments created jobs and goods. The machinery played an

effective part in developing the American industry and because of this development,

consumption formed. However, consumption created other agendas with goods. For

example, Sontag writes in her text about photographs of women who are usually

stereotyped, because they are seen in our society as minorities. I think that consumption

resulted in stereotypes regarding womens identity and beauty. This gave me the idea to

analyze Consumption from Kaplans text and lead it to another aspect, such as,

Stereotype in Sontag text.

It is better to analyze consumption and stereotypes about beauty by starting to

look at the beginning of consumption. For example, Kaplan writes, By the late 1920s,

Americas business and political elite had found a way to defuse the dual threat of

stagnating economic growth and a radicalize working class in what one industrial

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 consultant called the gospel of consumption- the notion that people could be convinced

that however much they have, it isnt enough (p.110). In other words, in order for

industries to sell their products they have to convince people to buy those products. For

example, in the early stage of consumption, in the late 1920s, business leaders noticed

that people were satisfied with the products they owned. Therefore, industry leaders

expressed concern; they wanted people to buy from them periodically. Industries need to

sell their products and convince customers that those new products are better than

previous ones. Therefore, industries have created advertisements for the public.

Advertisement guides to selling effort.

Furthermore, as industries grow, the assumption was that the society would have

success. However, what is good for business is not always good for society. New

innovations in technology present our society with positive and negative effects. With

unbalanced consumption our society became unhealthy. Industries are not the only one

who determine the future of our society. The choices that people make and what they

choose to consume has also determined our future.

In addition, in the competitive world, the leaders of industries always tend to become

rich and famous. Perhaps industry leaders dont realize what a healthy society is. They do

their jobs for a living. Industries succeed when they have customers who are frequent

buyers. Profit makes them rich and powerful. On the other hand, people who constantly

spend have financial problems. In my opinion, a healthy society is a society when we create

products using less amount of resources. People who consume too much either way have an

addiction to consume, take advantage of creditors, or perhaps those people are less educated

on how to manage a budget.

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 Once again, Kaplan describes how consumption grows in America, and he mentions

that our society became possessive and unhealthy. He writes, We are quite literally working

ourselves into a frenzy just so we can consume all that our machines can produce (p.112).

For example, people see advertising products and perhaps they have a sudden impulse to

buy it, because they like it for its many features and colors. People in our society dont just

buy what they need, instead, they buy, or want to buy everything they can. Some end up

high in debt from generation to generation. Unbalanced consuming and rapid change in the

production of goods turns significant numbers of people materialistic.

However, Kaplan in his text criticizes the negative outcome of consumption, such as

American Families carrying debt. In addition, debt leads to more financial problem because

the interest from lenders companies financially ruins American families. Kaplan offers

some solutions to improve our well-being. For example, Kaplan writes, We can create a

society where people have time to play together as well as work together, time to act

politically in their common interests, and time even to argue over what those common

interests might be (p. 116). This means that our society can be this way. We have to

recreate society in which social interactions will be important among people, and, goods

people produce will not dominate society as it does now. People can spend more time with

families, but at this time, people work more because they want to buy more.

In addition, rich people can afford to buy more than the average consumer can

dream. Despite being so strikingly rich and possessing many materialistic luxuries and

amenities, these people are never happy. None is happy forever, because new things become

old soon, and in turn interest and excitement over things are shaded with time.

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 On the other hand, advertisements renew peoples interest in buying products

quickly. To advertise a product is an important part of industries. For example, in

advertising ads there are clips and images of movie stars, icons, singers, and other

overpaid wealthy people from Hollywood production. Their images are everywhere: in

magazines, on billboards, and posters, regardless of their personality, morality, etc. Those

sophisticated images are in excellent quality and represent someone or something for

someones profit. Consider that nowadays, Photoshop can turn any photo into a work of

art and touch-software can transform any image into the ideal image. In addition, these

Hollywood Primadonnas, apart from being able to induce news around them, lack

theology and geometry, and so do their producers. Needless to say, these people take

advantage of new technology. Therefore, what people always admire in commercial

beauty turns out to be fake! Indeed, people should understand, for example, the difference

between enhanced art images and real shots.

As long as advertisement agencies get paid, society has to accept some conditions,

even if society might disagree on how people are treated. In fact, consumption spins out

of control because in our competitive era, industries that do not succeed will be out of

business forever. Therefore, money in our society rules everything. Good advertisement

helps industries continue to rise. Advertisements goal is to get the public to buy

products. Therefore, advertisement plays significant role in the process of consumption.

In fact, industries spend almost half of their profits on advertisements. Hollywood is one

of the biggest examples of capitalist spending. In capitalist state it is impossible to

express ordinary self as an important person. If you have no money, then you are nobody,

a diminutive person In our society, people recognize beauty of those who are rich,

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actors, icons, etc. The overwhelming commercials on TV with the same old familiar

famous faces have created a stereotype for beauty that we see everyday.

Now we know, advertisements do not intentionally create stereotype about

beauty. Not all people understand the effects of advertisements. People dont realize it is

fake. People can assume, conclude, and then stereotype with one glance at the photo

because people base their judgments on these fake images.

In addition, photography is one of the main fields of art which are subject to

advertisements for industries. People created stereotype about beauty from their visual

experiences. For example, when people look at photos of ordinary people they establish

distinction between commercial images. However, commercial images are often art, in

which images of models are enhanced with cosmetic and other special features in

Photoshop.

In addition, when people look at the pictures, they immediately label these looks.

Sontag, in her text, writes, Nobody looks through a book of pictures of women, without

noticing whether the women are attractive or not (p.223). People expect women to be

attractive and men to be strong because its the way our society classifies the separate

genders. For example, as a child, a girl receives a beautiful doll, and a boy receives a

racing toy as gifts. It indicates that we classify and stereotype genders because our

society works that way.

For example, we think that for women in life one of the important priorities is

their appearance. Men have the natural instinct to be good observers. What a man sees in

front of him is almost the number one priority in life. On the other hand, people

stereotype about women being housewives and dont have much concern on how much

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money she can earn because men are seen in society as being responsible for the financial

matters in a family. Besides, how many of you people have noticed that women in society

maintain cleaning jobs better than governmental, and vice versa?

However, todays responsible, good women tend to be beautiful on the inside.

Their personal achievement is a becoming more important priority for them. In our

society we have women who hold important jobs, such as, teachers, doctors, lawyers,

even a few astronauts. Anyhow, despite, social, economical, subjective differences

between being women and being man, some womens dreams are becoming more reality.

Since the early 19th- century, for women their appearance wasnt the only

interest. They have attempted to improve their status in education, wages, and working

conditions. In general, women want to have the same privileges as men. However, mens

will to power caused gender discrimination! On the other hand, if women today were in

power, they would probably blow up the planet! Women in certain cultures dont have

the same mentality. In my opinion, there is a significant percent of women who are

needed to achieve communication skills. Do you think women have directed their needs

and concerns properly to the government? It is usually easier said than done for women.

Furthermore, women are welcome to work in many occupations of all areas of job

fields because they wouldnt be paid equally as much as men anyway, and they perform

jobs with similar tasks usually bestowed on men. Despite the acknowledgement by

whichever campaign could admit that men and women were created equally or the law

could create equal opportunity for women. Indeed, men continue to discriminate women

regardless of the law. Once again, womens wages are lower than that of mens, and

women are easily fired from work. On the other hand, many people dont have to pay

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taxes equally because of their economical status. In fact, many women who get subsidize

assistances from the government are working under the table which tells us that women

are not the only victims in society.

In addition, societys ideology has often forced women to choose between a

marriage and a career. Sontag writes, The measure of how much things have not

changed is that a woman earns between one-half and three-fourths a what a man earns in

the same job (p. 227). This means that in our society, men dont value women and take

advantage of womens vulnerabilities. Yes, the world is unfair and strange. Its a big

question on why our society works this way. I am curious, on what men really see and

think when they look at women? Ironically, feminists recognize the needs only of those

women who are a specific ethnicity, age, and color. Men are not the only ones who

discriminate against women.

Another example of stereotype are men who dislike and discriminate women who

are not youthful anymore. This is why many beautiful, world- famous women leave their

acting careers in their forties because they want people to remember them in their youth,

not old. In other words, even successful stars know that they cant hold fame and

beauty forever. They are afraid that any criticism will destroy their image. For example,

advertisement agencies choose young, beautiful people with charming smiles. Today we

can see more diversity in commercials. Every generation has a different approach to

business or culture.

However, people do not get away from stereotyping. But in our society we can

see women having different personalities. Sontag writes, Imagine a book of pictures of

women, in which none of the women could be identified as beautiful (p. 224). This book

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is more about different women with different personalities, and a different message to

people, perhaps to see women with different stories and accept them on the way they are.

Furthermore, Sontag writes, One of the tasks of photography is to disclose, and

shape our sense of, the variety, of the world (p. 228). In other words, we tend to know

about other cultures because it is how our perception of the modern world works.

Diversity is one of the todays important topics in our society. It works for all aspects of

our life because in American society people have different social status, cultures,

ethnicity, and beliefs compared to other countries like Europe.

For example, in Anne Leibovitzs women photo album, people can look at

different women. Sontag mentions, There are strong women, some of them doing

mens jobs, some of them dancers and athletes with powerful musculature that only

recently began to be visible when such champion female bodies were photographed

(p.228). These women have so much to tell. By looking at these photos, one can assume

that a significant number of women have different achievements since modern women

appeared. Some women perform jobs which before were assigned for men only, because

some jobs required strong physical abilities. Some women in life have achieved these too.

Photography has created a sense of national identity about beauty. In addition, our

perception on beauty is what we see, not hear. Perhaps our feelings always come before

our intelligence. Photography is one of the fields of art that changes with modern views.

Sontag writes, Photography is in the service of the post-judgmental ethos guiding

ascendancy in societies whose norms are drawn from the practices of consumerism

(p.229). In other words, photos have history: development and creation. Sontag mentions

that diversity is important in America. Photography will help women overcome social

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and other agendas in life if it can bring all kinds of issues to light in the images of

women, and direct these to the government. Good art can change society for the better

because art is part of our culture which entertains, educates, and inspires many people.

However, to help society change, photography and other art fields (at least some of them)

have to get away from commercialism and work with government, who has to financially

support teachers, artists, thinkers, etc. for producing good ideas which will benefit our

society.

Nowadays, we see more images emerge from artists that shape our understanding

about multicultural identity. Sontag mentions in her text, One of the tasks of

photography is to disclose and shape our sense of the variety of the world (p.228).

Photography should not just represent ideal images. Needless to say, I have seen people

in the crowd with more intelligent and much more natural beauty than those images of

people who have occupied billboards for one hundred years. Advertisers should show

public, innocent, drug free, non-violent faces, and non-violent world.

Another task is for industries to work together with photography. In my opinion,

industries who want to strive for maximum profit must learn how to cater and appeal to

people of all cultures. That means their approach to market advertising should be more

sensitive and aware of their interest, which could be different than the Western world.

Work Cited

Jeffrey, Kaplan. The Gospel of Consumption. First Year Composition Reader-2010.

University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (ed). New York, Boston: Pearson Custom

Publishing, 2009. 109-116.

Sontag, Susan. A Photograph is Not an Opinion. Or Is It? . First Year Composition

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 Reader-2010. University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (ed). New York, Boston:

Pearson Custom Publishing, 2009. 221-229.

Consumption. BussinessDictionary. 6 May 2010

<http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/consumption.html>.

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