To Buy or Not to Buy?

Consumerism Will Be the Death of Us

“Before long it will be the animals who do the dieting so that the ultimate consumer does not have to.”
Mimi Sheraton



People (Americans) love to shop. People love to have the newest and best thing on the market. People love new technologies so much that they spend money they don't have and it is far worse during the holidays. New ways of advertising, paired with cultural shifts toward consumerism, seem to be driving the trend of these consumerist attitudes.

It seems that when there are too many other new demands on your time or when you're under stress to meet deadlines at work, or if you are dealing with a difficult relationship that you're going to be at risk for spending more. This lead me to the question, does attitude precede behavior? Or, does behavior precede attitude. In other words is it the attitudes in American society that cause over-consumption, or is it because everyone has is out to purchase the newest product that causes consumer attitudes?



Some other commonly asked questions about consumerism and consumption in America are:

How are the products and resources we consume actually produced?
What are the impacts of that process of production on the environment, society, on individuals?
What are the impacts of certain forms of consumption on the environment, on society, on individuals?
Which actors influence our choices of consumption?
Which actors influence how and why things are produced or not?
What is a necessity and what is a luxury?



The following link provides details on consumerism vs. environmentalism: http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/publications/frontier_series/Consum-Pt8.pdf
Unfortunately these attitudes have taken their tole on the environment of the entire globe, and its decline is yet to change course. To make things worse, American society has an enormous influence on the rest of the earth, and our consumerism lifestyle has, and is further, spreading throughout nations across the globe.

National Geographic has something to say about consumerism vs. environmentalism:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/01/0111_040112_consumerism.html

The only ways to help save the earth from societies mass consumer behavior is to STOP BUYING SO MUCH! As well as convince others to do the same, and of course, RECYCLE because the only world you got will not last if we continue on this lifestyle.


As the great Martin Luther King said April of 1967,


"We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered. A nation can flounder as readily in the face of moral and spiritual bankruptcy as it can through financial bankruptcy."

Obscurity

How Innuendoes Changed Cinema

The Production Code listed what was morally acceptable and morally unacceptable content for motion pictures produced for a public audience in the United States.

The code was adopted in 1930, began effectively enforcing it in 1934, and soon abandoned it in 1968.

The phrase "more innocent" Hollywood is referring to an era when the movie industry policed itself. But that early Hollywood wasn't always so innocent.

For decades, it's true, the major film studios were governed by a production code requiring that their pictures be "wholesome" and "moral" and encourage what the studios called "correct thinking."

However this did not last for long, because the film makers sought out ways around the restrictions, it began to happen so much that the code ended up failing.











The Production Code enumerated three "General Principles" as follows:

1. No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.
2. Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented.
3. Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation.

Specific restrictions were spelled out as "Particular Applications" of these principles:

Nakedness and suggestive dances were prohibited.
The ridicule of religion was forbidden, and ministers of religion were not to be represented as comic characters or villains.
The depiction of illegal drug use was forbidden, as well as the use of liquor, "when not required by the plot or for proper characterization."
Methods of crime (e.g. safe-cracking, arson, smuggling) were not to be explicitly presented.
References to alleged sex perversion (such as homosexuality) and venereal disease were forbidden, as were depictions of childbirth.
The language section banned various words and phrases that were considered to be offensive.
Murder scenes had to be filmed in a way that would discourage imitations in real life, and brutal killings could not be shown in detail. "Revenge in modern times" was not to be justified.
The sanctity of marriage and the home had to be upheld. "Pictures shall not imply that low forms of sex relationship are the accepted or common thing." Adultery and illicit sex, although recognized as sometimes necessary to the plot, could not be explicit or justified and were not supposed to be presented as an attractive option.
Portrayals of miscegenation were forbidden.
"Scenes of Passion" were not to be introduced when not essential to the plot. "Excessive and lustful kissing" was to be avoided, along with any other treatment that might "stimulate the lower and baser element."
The flag of the United States was to be treated respectfully, and the people and history of other nations were to be presented "fairly."
The treatment of "Vulgarity," defined as "low, disgusting, unpleasant, though not necessarily evil, subjects" must be "subject to the dictates of good taste." Capital punishment, "third-degree methods," cruelty to children and animals, prostitution and surgical operations were to be handled with similar sensitivity.



The enforcement of the Production Code led to the dissolution of many local censorship boards. It was difficult or practically impossible to put production code on movies because the audience became to smart. The audience learned how watch movies and see things that they were not supposed to without it being blatantly shown to them.



Many, if not most, movies today have numerous sexual innuendoes all throughout, and some would argue that even documentaries, educational films, and children's movies have sexual innuendoes as well.

The Good Old 60's

The Andy Griffith Show

Andy Taylor: Goob, did anybody ever tell you you've got a big mouth?
Goober Pyle: Yeah, but I don't pay no attention to 'em.



It's the 1960's again and I

am flipping through the

channels... what to

watch? I could watch Ed

Sullivian, I could watch

JFK's inaugural speech

again, or more on the

civic rights movement or

the cold war, but no...

who wants to wants to

watch the news when

the Andy Griffith Show

is on?






The following link provides a time line of the 1960s in America:
http://www.kyrene.org/schools/brisas/sunda/decade/1960.htm
Watch full episodes on the following link:
http://www.tvland.com/fullepisodes/andygriffith/
The following link gives the scoop on Andy:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0341431/



In its eight years on the air, it never dropped below seventh place in the seasonal Nielsen rankings, and it was number one the year it ceased production. The old fashioned comedy instantly became one of America's top favorites and still is to this today. The Andy Griffith Show launched in 1960, a time known for not only peace, love, Woodstock and groovy hippies, but also the Civil Rights movement that created a lot of tension within the country, also the Cold War and Vietnam. Most of the characters were "hicks," playing comic foils to the sagacious Andy. Gomer Pyle (Jim Nabors) and his cousin Goober (George Lindsey) came right out of the "bumpkin" tradition that had been developed years ago in films, popular literature, and comic strips.



The Andy Griffith Show kept the family oriented shows like Leave it To Beaver and The Twilight Zone alive during a time of war and racial discrimination, political tension and international tension, giving a laugh to thousands of American's across the nation, and paved the way for many shows to follow:

The Beverly Hillbillies
http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=The+Beverly+Hillbillies&x=0&y=0
Green Acres
http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=Green+Acres&x=0&y=0
Petticoat Junction
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056780/
Hee Haw
http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=Hee+Haw&x=0&y=0

Have more questions? Refer to the following link:
http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=the+andy+griffith+show&x=0&y=0

SEXmopolitan

While sitting in the hospital lobby waiting for a friend to get done with her check-up, i took a glance at the the people around me. The men seemed to be lost in thought, and the four women to my left appeared to be intrigued in their magazines, three of which held Cosmopolitans. As my curiosity grew i found myself delving into the sexual content that filled the pages between the sexy model on the front cover and pantene advertisement on the back.

When you look at the cover of a magazine you generally look at the title first, however when you look at the cover of the cosmopolitan magazine you cant help but look at the subtitles all of which contain some sort of SEX related material. I have always heard the statement "SEX sells," but this magazine is not using sex to sell a product, rather its intentions are to sell sex as a product.

Who is the magazine trying to reach? Cosmopolitan's intended audiences is young women, anywhere from ages as young as sixteen to twenty-seven. Cosmopolitan reaches this audience through sex related topics. The influence of the magazine is tremendous, particularly when the article titles intale information such as:

- "22 smart, SEXY skills every Cosmo girls NEED to now"
-"75 tricks for nights when you want to be just a little naughtier"
-"The surprising touch that whips a guy on date #1"
-"SEX after sundown"

Check for yourself on the website below:

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/

What are Commercials really about?

Every time my girlfriend turns on the TV, I sigh in exasperation. TV today, to me, seems as though it has become more about commercials seeking to sell, influence, and manipulate the youth, rather than entertaining the audience.



I find the commercial extremely irritating not only because the music is awful but because the song is about selling chicken nuggets.

My question is why would McDonalds advertise their chicken nuggets through a song like this?

-Is it because they have ran out of ways to advertise them?
Or
- Is it because years of advertising have perfected the methods and techniques to entice the audience?

The following link discusses how many ads Americans see on average everyday, how the audience is often the product, how ads often like to appeal to the audience's (consumers) emotions as a way to sell their products. Me for example, the McDonalds commercial appealed to my emotions in the sense that i was irritated by it.

http://library.thinkquest.org/17067/influence/nfinfluence.html

Once you check out the link above, ask yourself just how easily influenced are you. Would you eat a chicken nugget now?