breaking the rules: puffs of dissent

Although Edward Bernays ingeniously transformed a part of cigarette advertising into a feminist symbol with his “torches of freedom” campaign, cigarettes have always been a man’s prerogative, an inexpensive privilege to help the male define his identity. Where for women the cigarette was connected to the idea of slim and rich, for the male is part of the American dream of happiness, and rejection was a rejection of the myth. A myth which had to show the male in control.

Read More:http://pzrservices.typepad.com/vintageadvertising/2008/11/porn-stars-enjo.htm

The male has the right to break the rules in order to “find himself” which was the new variation on the rugged individualist; the pioneer spirit in the new world whose self-interest would be tempered with community need: like male bonding and smoking with buddies. The cigarette ads have all plied this terrain of the western culture male, the good man in the storm adhering to a singular and personal code of ethics that, despite outside influences, coercion, moral suasion, group psychology, will survive and prosper, sustaining the spirit of the righteous loner who chooses his associations and makes his way intrepidly through a corrupt and obsequious world. Think John Wayne, or even Sherlock Holmes. In the corporate world its a diluted fake authenticity, or as an advertisement for Winston proclaimed in 1999, “you have to appreciate authenticity in all its forms.” Joshua Glenn has enumerated many variations on what he terms “fake authenticity”.

1972 Camel Filters Cigarette Mr Stanley's Hot Pants Ad With every pair of Mr. Stanley’s Hot Pants goes a free pack of short-short filter cigarettes. Now everybody will be wearing hot pants and smoking short-short filter cigarettes. Camel Filters. They’re not for everybody. (But then, they don’t try to be.) ...Thomas Frank:Camel cigarettes. The sixties are over and now it's the pseudo-liberating, youth-screaming styles of the Peacock Revolution that are the true markers of conformity--and of a particularly effeminate conformity as well. The real rugged individualists are . . . average guys. Read More:http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/frank4.html image:http://www.euro-cig.com/gallery.php?id_cap=43

Thomas Frank: Regardless of the tastes of Republican leaders, rebel youth culture remains the cultural mode of the corporate moment, used to promote not only specific products but the general idea of life in the cyber-revolution. Commercial fantasies of rebellion, liberation, and outright “revolution” against the stultifying demands of mass society are commonplace almost to the point of invisibility in advertising, movies, and television programming. For some, Ken Kesey’s parti-colored bus may be a hideous reminder of national unraveling, but for Coca-Cola it seemed a perfect promotional instrument for its “Fruitopia” line, and the company has proceeded to send replicas of the bus around the country to generate interest in the counterculturally themed beverage. Nike shoes are sold to the accompaniment of words delivered by William S. Burroughs and songs by The Beatles, Iggy Pop, and Gil Scott Heron (“the revolution will not be televised”); peace symbols decorate a line of cigarettes manufactured by R. J. Reynolds and the walls and windows of Starbucks coffee shops nationwide; the products of Apple, IBM, and Microsoft are touted as devices of liberation; and advertising across the product category sprectrum calls upon consumers to break rules and find themselves. Read More:http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/259919.html

---In 1934, American tennis star Ellsworth Vines did some advertising for R.J Reynolds’ Camel cigarette brand. He was 23 years old at the time, and was among the world’s best players. The magazine ad at right shows Vines in a full-page endorsement for the cigarette in his tennis attire, depicted as smoking a cigarette at the end of a tennis match. However, it is not known whether Vines in fact was a smoker, as sometimes endorsing stars only posed with ciga- rettes to do the advertising. This ad, in any case, appeared in Popular Science magazine October 1934, and perhaps other publications as well. Read More:http://www.pophistorydig.com/?tag=cigarettes-pop-culture


ADDENDUM:
Thomas Frank:Consumerism is no longer about “conformity” but about “difference.” Advertising teaches us not in the ways of puritanical self-denial (a bizarre notion on the face of it), but in orgiastic, never-ending self-fulfillment. It counsels not rigid adherence to the tastes of the herd but vigilant and constantly updated individualism. We consume not to fit in, but to prove, on the surface at least, that we are rock `n’ roll rebels, each one of us as rule-breaking and hierarchy-defying as our heroes of the 60s, who now pitch cars, shoes, and beer. This imperative of endless difference is today the genius at the heart of American capitalism, an eternal fleeing from “sameness” that satiates our thirst for the New with such achievements of civilization as the infinite brands of identical cola, the myriad colors and irrepressible variety of the cigarette rack at 7-Eleven. Read More:http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/f/frank-dissent.html

Joshua Glenn:The misdirected quest for authenticity is an ugly thing. Will there never be an end to the spectacle of (white, middle-class) people draping themselves in exotic fabrics, bribing sherpas to haul them up mountains, spending $15 for turkey-burgers in urban hunting lodges, ooh-ing and ahh-ing over macaroni paintings by schizophrenics, throwing out perfectly good old kitchen tables for new tables into which fist-sized holes have been carefully drilled, and-of course-emulating or at least fetishizing people darker and/or poorer than themselves We believe that all of the above, and more, can be usefully summed up under one phrase: "fake authenticity." Read More:http://www.hermenaut.com/a5.shtml image:http://pzrservices.typepad.com/vintageadvertising/2009/08/camel-cigarette-ads-from-the-1970s.html

 

Related Posts

This entry was posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Marketing/Advertising/Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>