Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84 chuqui version 1.7 9/23/84; site nsc.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!wjh12!harvard!seismo!nsc!chuqui From: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Zonker T. Chuqui) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Re: Indoctrination Message-ID: <1729@nsc.UUCP> Date: Sun, 28-Oct-84 14:12:26 EST Article-I.D.: nsc.1729 Posted: Sun Oct 28 14:12:26 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 29-Oct-84 03:26:06 EST References: <5390@brl-tgr.ARPA> Distribution: net Organization: The Warlocks Cave, Castrovalva Lines: 68 > [from Moira Mallison] > )Are you kidding? *Where* have you been? The Manhattanization of America > )has one message for all women, that we must be young and thin and beautiful. Moira has a point, and a very valid one. It applies just as strongly to men, but in different ways. What Madison Avenue has done is create an exceptionally strong form of peer pressure bearing down on each and every one of us, and there is absolutely no way to avoid it. You can throw your TV out the window, drop the radio in the bathtub, burn your newspapers and you STILL get inundated-- billboards, skywriting, and most importantly, you're friends and neighbors. Think about it. How many phrases do we use in our everyday life that come directly from advertising or the media? I'm very definitely a media child, and I've watched and studied the media because it IS such an important influence in society. You can't win an election without Television support-- candidates don't talk issues any more, they pose for the 6 o'clock news. Look back at the Kennedy/Nixon debate-- one of the main reasons that Jack won was because he was VERY aware of the importance of his media image; Nixon as an old line politicial underestimated the effects and got blown out of the water. Look at how television has affected our perceptions of world affairs-- look at Vietnam, where TV almost singlehandedly undermined the entire Department of Defense Propoganda department by showing what war was REALLY like while we ate dinner every night (one of the strongest images of my childhood is the nightly 'body counts' on the evening news-- I STILL wonder how that has affected my views); look at TV and Grenada; and look at our perceptions of the war in Afghanistan (where is Afghanistan, you might ask? My point exactly-- it isn't a media event, so it doesn't really exist-- the afghans don't get the money to keep their war going because we can't film it for our evening entertainment...) When you look at how pervasive the media is in our lives, how can you imagine that they aren't affecting us? Women are tall and slinky, men are athletic and tan. I, of course, am neither, and it bothers me. Despite the fact that I recognize that I'll NEVER look like that brainless piece of meat in the Soliflex ads, it STILL bothers me. I look at the media images I see and lust after-- not one of them looks like Eleanor Roosevelt, they all look like Nastassia Kinski, like Marielle Hemmingway, like Jessica Lange. It's there, folks, and you are affected by it. You can't fight it, but you can recognize it and work with the parts of it that you feel is appropriate. Pretending you aren't affected by it is exactly what THEY want you to do-- they then have you right where they want you. > [from William Gulley] > >But all of the advertizing in the world can't do a thing unless the "target" > >is fraught with insecurities about how he/she is. The media creates and manipulates the image. One thing going for their favor is almost everyone goes through a time when they are exceptionally vulnerable to indoctrination-- adolescense. Peer pressure is exceptionally high-- Madison avenue simply needs to put the image out, and your friends (all of which are just as insecure as you are, because all of your bodies aree changing and your minds and hormones are in chaos) will make sure that you fall into line, or ridicule you for it. Why do we have such a large problem with smoking and drugs and drinking and pregnancy during the teen years? It isn't the tobacco industry or the beer group or this or that, it is the fact that you go through a phase where you need to belong, and someone in the group that {sex,drugs,rock&roll,beer,smokes} is how you belong. The alternative is being ***OUTSIDE***, and that is worse than death. You may not like it, but you conform. And then, you will likely conform to some degree the rest of your life. THEY have you. And they always will. -- From the Department of Bistromatics: Chuq Von Rospach {cbosgd,decwrl,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA I'd know those eyes from a million years away....