~Sontag's On Photography~

Susan Sontag's book, On Photography, takes a deeper look into the meaning behind a single photograph. She recognizes the individuality behind each picture and takes a critical look at not only the photograph itself but also the photographer. In the first chapter, In Platos Cave Sontag emphasizes the popularity of mass photography and how popular this art form has become, and in the second chapter, America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly Sontag takes a look at a photographer from the 1970's, Diane Arbus.

In the first chapter, In Platos Cave, Sontag states, "To collect photographs is to collect the world," she explains that movies are watched and then over, but a photograph is a singular tangible object. Photographs can be shared, framed, carried around, they are portable memories. With photographs gaining more popularity with each generation, Sontag explains that everyone is taking pictures, "Recently, photography has become almost as widely practiced an amusement as sex and dancing-which means that, like every mass art form, photography is not practiced by most people as an art. It is mainly a social rite, a defense against anxiety, and a tool of power." This statement is very true for nearly every American; most people have pictures everywhere, in frames on shelves, on their fridge, at their desk, on their bulletin board, in their car. Most people also feel obligated to take pictures on vacation bringing their camera everywhere they go just "in case." This need to photograph everything on vacation is also similar to photographing your children, Sontag explains that if you do not photograph them growing up that it is a sign of ,"parental indifference." It is interesting to see that with the increasing availability of the camera, the face of photography, once seen as more of an art form, has been altered into a modern-day practice.

In Sontag's second chapter, America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly, Sontag focuses much of her attention on photographer Diane Arbus. Arbus had a passion when it came to photographing people who were out of the ordinary and quite disturbing to most people; This was because she believed that most people focused on others flaws as one of the first things they noticed about them. Sontag explains that she concentrated on victims, "Her work shows people who are pathetic, pitiable, as well as repulsive, but it does not arouse any compassionate feelings." Sontag explains that Arbus's artwork, "... is a self-willed test of hardness. Her photographs offer an occasion to demonstrate that life's horror can be faced without squeamishness." This point offers up an explanation to why her photographs are so entrancing; they catch your eye and you want to look away, but you don't. Sontag explains that her photographs allow you to, "confront the horrible with equanimity."

In conclusion, both chapters from On Photography, were very interesting in the fact that they let the reader examine their own thoughts on photos. Sontag offers up different viewpoints on photography and explains in her first chapter the rise of photography and how we know it today. In the second chapter Sontag looks at photographer, Diane Arbus, and explains how an artist can change how the viewer looks at moments in life due to viewing a picture, and how a picture carries an unimaginable amount of influence over the viewer.

!MORE!

Day by day the corporate world seems to expand, overflow, to fill every seamless nook and cranny nationwide, selling every product know to man-kind. Advertisements are everywhere and impossible not to see, TV, radio, billboards, fliers, signs/posters. Just the other day I was at the dentist office sitting in the reclining chair with the hygienist cleaning away at my teeth, when she lowered the head of the chair down and to my surprise there I was looking straight up at another advertisement. The ZOOM teeth whitening procedure was now available at my very own dentists office! There on the ceiling was a massive poster with attractive couples and best friends all with fresh, gleaming, white as can be smiles staring back at me. I believe that all of this advertising feeds the American culture of BUY BUY BUY, SHOP SHOP SHOP! The movie, The Corporation, focused on many ideas that deal with advertising and branding for the consumeristic American culture. I believe that the corporations have to keep expanding in order to keep their market, there always has to be new, fresh ideas keeping the advertising in the American culture and the advertising also has to marketed for their specific targets.

One of the ways that advertising fits in with the American culture is that they target children. The youth of America is a giant target because they also have to become consumers like previous generations to keep the cycle going. The impact of advertising for children is becoming stronger and stronger as technology becomes more advanced. Everything is thought out how to brainwash children into getting their products. If the youth does not become consumers when they are young, then when they get older and have purchasing power and are not purchasing, what would corporations do? The movie The Corporation shows all the work that goes into marketing for children; how many studies are done, what draws kids attention, the use of child psychologists...the list goes on and on, but it is very clear that in order to keep the idea of the consumeristic American culture, it is essential that you must convince the youth that they to buy what they see advertised.

The other idea that the movie, The Corporation, showed was the need to expand companies and make more product, and to out beat products with newer products. The movie showed that so many of America's brand names are not made in America, they are made in places where they can get cheap labor, so they can make more output for a fraction of the price than it would cost them here in the U.S. The corporations are not thinking about anyone besides themselves, total disregard to everything except what will benefit the corporation. In terms of culture this is relevant because this idea quickly resonates within the purchaser, that nothing matters except wearing that brand and buying those certain products, with no care about how the product was made or what the company that makes it stands for. It is a harsh reality that revolves around the idea of more more more, "keeping up with the Jones'. "

In conclusion, I feel that the movie, The Corporation, dealt with many issues surrounding the American culture. The two examples I found that demonstrated this were first, advertising to children and hooking them into wanting their products and teaching them to think with a consumeristic brain continuing the cycle of the buying and shopping culture we have created, and second by showing how corporations branch out and create the mentality of more is better, whether it is right or wrong.

-No Logo Response-

Culture Jamming, sound familiar? Not to me, at least before reading sections of Naomi Klein's book, No Logo. I now know that culture jamming is a term revolving around the idea of breaking up mass culture, mostly in advertising, by distorting advertisements. Her book encompasses the universal truths in the advertising business and how culture jamming fits into the world of advertising. The two key ideas that I found to be intriguing in No Logo were, first the idea of culture jamming and how it is used, and second the idea of of culture jamming and "Adbusters" becoming its own brand and its own advertisement

The first idea, of culture jamming and how it is used, is very interesting. Klein explains that culture jamming is not a new idea and that it has been around for a long time. She uses the example that in the 1930's the American public was so upset with the consumeristic society that they used "toucher-uppers" to disfigure ads that displayed items/ideas that they viewed as unrealistic and had resentment toward. Culture Jamming today is seen everywhere, advertisements (that the culture jammers changed), commercials (TRUTH:anti-smoking commercials), on the Internet, and any other place people can share their ideas. Today culture jamming is easier with the current technology; with programs like photo-shop disfiguring ads and making them look very believable, as in they could have been made that way, is not too difficult for some culture jammers. Klein states, "Rodriguez de Gerada's messages are designed to mesh with their targets, borrowing visual legitimacy from advertising itself. Many of his "edits" have been so successfully integrated that the altered billboards look like the originals, though with a message that takes viewers by surprise." I believe that statement is critical in grasping that with today's technology culture jamming could have even more of an effect because people may have to THINK, they may have to actually ask themselves, "is that real, is that what I'm seeing?" and maybe they may uncover some truth that they did not see before.

The second idea that I found in Kleins book, No Logo, was the idea that culture jamming and "adbusters" was becoming in itself a brand and an advertisement. In, No Logo, it explains that their are produced t-shirts, key chains, calenders, coffee mugs, everything devoted to ad busting, when the point of culture jamming was not to become its own advertisement, but to literally BUST others! She explains that the magazine "Adbusters," has been criticized by others saying that it has been turned into a, " home-shopping network for adbusting accessories." I found this humerus because to me it is going away and taking away from everything culture jamming stands for!

In conclusion, No Logo was a very informative reading that made me start to look more critically at advertisements. The points that I found most interesting were revolved around what culture jamming is today and where it was in the early 1900s and the idea of culture jamming as its own brand, going up against everything it believes.