About: Adam Curtis' TV documentary about the inventor of 'public relations' (and its extension 'marketing') Edward Bernays. [Wikipedia] [imdb]
Point: Edward Bernays https://www.youtube.com/embed/eJ3RzGoQC4s?start=32&end=99
Transcript: Abraham Brill [Wikipedia] "was one of the first psychoanalysts [Wikipedia] in America and for a large fee he told Bernay that cigarettes were a symbol of the penis and of male sexual power he told Bernays that if he could find a way to connect cigarettes with the idea of challenging male power then women would smoke because then they would have their own penises every year New York held an Easter Day Parade to which thousands came and Bernays decided to stage event there he persuaded a group of rich debutants to hide cigarettes under their clothes then they should join the par parade and at a given signal from him they were to light up the cigarettes dramatically Bernays then informed the press that he had heard that a group of suffragettes were preparing to protest by lighting up what they called 'torches of freedom' [Wikipedia] he knew this would be an outcry and he knew that all of the photographers would be there to capture this moment and so he was ready with a phrase which was 'torches of freedom' and so here you have a symbol women young women debutants smoking a cigarette in public with a phrase that means anybody who believes in this kind of equality pretty much has to support them in the ensuing debate about this because 'torches of freedom' I mean what's on all American coins it's liberty she's holding up the torch you see and so all of this is there together there's emotion there's memory there's a rational phrase even though it's using a lot of emotional elements it's a it's a phrase that works in a rational sense all of this is together and so the next day this was not just in all of the New York papers it was across the United States and around the world and from that point forward uh the sale of cigarettes to women began to rise he had made them socially acceptable with a single symbolic act what Bernays had created was the idea that if a woman smoked it made her more powerful and independent an idea that still persists today embrace me my sweet Andra it made him realise that it was possible to persuade people to behave irrationally if you link products to their emotional desires and feelings the idea that smoking actually made women freer was completely irrational but it made them feel more independent it meant that irrelevant objects could become powerful emotional symbols of how you wanted to be seen by others" https://www.youtube.com/embed/eJ3RzGoQC4s?start=681&end=847
Point: 'manipulating the subconscious / irrational emotions' (convincing women to smoke): https://www.youtube.com/embed/eJ3RzGoQC4s?start=555
Transcript: "this new marketing culture began to take over the institutions previously dominated by a patrician elite [Wikipedia] in particular the world of journalism the assault was led by the profession of public relations in the past PR had been seen as seedy and corrupt now it became a glamorous business promoting products and celebrities and one of the rising stars was another member of the Freud family Matthew Freud [Wikipedia] the son of the liberal MP Clement [Wikipedia] what Freud and other PR's realised was that they could use their celebrities as levers to infiltrate advertising into the editorial content of newspapers the newspapers were offered exclusive interviews with celebrities but only if they also agreed to mention products made by Freud's corporate clients in terms dictated by the company what happened with Freud's was that you effectively got some kind of product placement or even product the manufacturers of the product got some degree of control over how their products would appear in print so if for example you did want to write about Capri's passion for stuffed cross Pizza you would sign a contract which guaranteed that you would mention the firm Pizza Hut uh in at least twice in certain positions in the introductory paragraph of of of the article you would agree to run the Pizza Hut logo at such and such a size in such and such a place and of course you would agree to run the enclosed pictures of Capri eating her stuffed cross Pizza there was no choice about how you would run this article in the Press you were effectively told how to run the article in the press by Freuds by Freuds it's a rise of the corporate culture and the rise of of business to traditional journalists this infiltration of advertising into the editorial pages was a corruption of their profession but to Mrs Thatcher's allies like Rupert Murdoch who owned the sun and the times it was part of a democratic revolution against an arrogant elite who had too long ignored the feelings of the masses 'they hate to see someone communicating with the masses they feel that newspapers the written word is not for the masses that should be left to television or perhaps to nobody I'm very proud of The Sun and The Sun was not represented tonight in your film you just took 'page three', which it seem so fascinated with I about page one page two every other page of the paper it was typical piece of slanting and elitism by the BBC who after all in order to get viewers for this programme and put on a very sexy episode of Star Trek just which I was watching out in the room there...', 'I don't think they put it on to get us viewers...', 'I think we just luck they try to carry viewers into these show programmes know how it's done...' By the late 80s Mrs Thatcher and her allies in advertising and the media had brought the desires of the individual to the centre of society." https://www.youtube.com/embed/eJ3RzGoQC4s?start=11335
Point: the invention of 'lifestyle marketing': https://www.youtube.com/embed/eJ3RzGoQC4s?start=9757
Point: 'public relations' used as a weapon in 'ideological warfare': https://www.youtube.com/embed/eJ3RzGoQC4s?start=2866
Point: an uncritical belief in the 'free market' (and 'focus groups'): https://www.youtube.com/embed/eJ3RzGoQC4s?start=11146
Point: desire to (express) 'new individualism': https://www.youtube.com/embed/eJ3RzGoQC4s?start=11231
Bibliography: Curtis, A. (2002). 'The Century of the Self' A. Curtis. [imdb]
