Berger’s Ways of Seeing was a strange read since I have very little knowledge about art or how art is viewed, or how art was viewed prior to the invention of the camera. The idea that the invention of the camera changed perspective is not something that I had ever considered. Certainly, it further proves the point that technology not only changes the social and culture structure of society, but changes the way citizens within that society think.
How technology changed the way we see – although interesting – was not really a topic that I connected with when reading this book. Instead, the images Berger chose to relay how advertising worked in our lives was, frankly, shocking and, at times, down right hilarious.
In his notes, Lipton writes that the ads “are almost laughable in their blatant sexism and classism.” (14) Their blatant sexism and classism is what I find most interesting about the images. It is not that I enjoy sexism or classism, it is that the images provide me with an opportunity to reflect on the advertising that I see today. In comparison with the advertising of yesteryear, I now think that we have improved as a society.
The dominant thought about culture and media these days is that we have become a “sexualized” society and that it is getting worse, not better. Berger’s book leads me to believe that we have always been a sexualized society and things have not gotten worse. If they have gotten better, I think depends entirely on your point-of-view. I just do not think we have gotten worse.
Certainly, the use of women as sexual objects or as sexual conquests has not changed. The three advertisings on page 149: one which shows a Farrah Fawcett type pouring liquor into a glass, the men’s cologne advertising that only has a bare women’s arm around the neck of a bare-backed man, and the third ad. that shows a bare-chested man lying in bed as a woman in lingerie leaves the room while a bottle of liquor sits on a table, leave no doubt that they are suggesting to men that if they use these items sex with women will soon follow.
Today, beer advertising still takes that approach in selling their products, although I do not think as much as they once did. Same with vehicle advertisings.
One reason I think things may have improved is because women now have purchasing power. Companies can not afford to completely masculate their products that may drive female consumers away. Berger says in Ways of Seeing that money is the key to human capacity. “The power to spend money is the power to live. According to the legends of publicity, those who lack the power to spend money become literally faceless.” (143)
With women’s move into the workforce, their power to spend money has increased greatly since Berger published Ways of Seeing in 1972. Sexuality is still a major force in advertising, but now it includes reverse sexism. Rather than the man getting the woman, it is now the woman getting the man, or not getting the man – if you do not use a certain product.
The general use of publicity as described by Berger, “Publicity begins by working on a natural appetite for pleasure….Publicity is never a celebration of a pleasure-in-itself. Publicity is always about the future buyer….Publicity is about social relations, not objects.” (132) is still the moral destiny of publicity today.
I will end this with an old maxim about social change: “The more things change, the more things stay the same.”
Work Cited
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books, 1972.
Lipton, Mark. Lipton’s Notes & Rationales. AHSS 1060 Mass Communication syllabus. Fall 2007.
Tags: Communications, education, literature, media
