Both Ewan and Goodman and Dretzin agree on the differentiation between the conception, approach, targeting, and advertising to girls and boys. The spatial segmentation of the sex-gender economy Ewan speaks of, instituted with the outset of advertising, is firmly upheld and perpetuated today as Goodman and Dretzin explore in their examination of youth culture. Ewan explains the industrial system's reification of separation with the establishment of the domestic sphere as private and predominantly populated by women while the working sphere as public and predominantly populated by men. Susan Porter Benson, in Gender, Generation, and Consumption in the United States sustains a similar view "perpetuating the gendering of 'production' as male and 'consumption' as female." (226). Advertising works to establish, reify, and perpetuate ideological sexual, social and spatial differences, with industrialization putting emphasis and privilege on surplus value being productive versus use value being consumptive. Emphasis and privilege do not reside with production to the same extent as at the outset of industrialization. In consumer culture, use value and consumption are now favored as expressions of power; emphasis and privilege are placed on the ability to obtain commodity goods demonstrative of wealth and interest. At the time of industrialization, however, the result of the industrial system reifying separations was an elevation of men's work outside the home while simultaneously devaluing women's reproductive realm in the home (Ewan 118-9). I would argue that this system of value is closely related to the social celebration of industrialization and the privileging of production, while attempting to downplay the importance of consumption. A capitalist ideology will operate most efficiently when its participants are supporting its tenets whole-heartedly. If privilege lies with production and not consumption, it can be predicted and assumed that people will want to be immersed in that realm, in production, able to manifest some of its power. Power, a patriarchal location was - and is - a male dominated expression. With industrialization and the recent shift in authority from familial patriarchy to the corporation, men were eager to maintain some kind of power position (Ewan 140). Consumption was new, and unfamiliar. In a patriarchal framework, anything that privileged work other than men's was avoided. Men felt emasculated enough with industrial authority becoming powerful; they did not want to sacrifice power positions otherwise. Consumption, in a capitalist ideology is therefore secondary, and delegated to those not in power, women. In a capitalist framework our social world privileges capital-producing work above all else; thus, as women's effort in the home is not capital producing, it is negated as non-work. In contemporary consumer culture, this power exchange is not the case. Consumption is paramount, for both men and women, and is a site of power. Benson also outlines the circumstance during industrial exchange in which boys were able to spend their own wages, while girls had to contribute to the patriarchal family (227-8). Differences between the sexes do not stop there. Goodman and Dretzin explain established terms for the ideological character advertisers present to young people to aspire to be and incorporate into their being. For boys, it is the "mook", an irresponsible and capricious character that manifests qualities of goofiness and the pursuit of pleasure. The term to describe the girls' character is "midriff". It connotes a sexualized yet innocent girl who can achieve anything she wants to through her beauty. These concepts offered to young people by corporations to strive to be are inherently unattainable. Like "cool", these characters are forever vague and constantly changing to maintain their inherent appeal, as well as their preferred position as something to emulate. Both the "mook" and "midriff" abstractions are highly individualized and segmented concepts that reify expectations of what it means to be a young and cool teenager today. These contemporary notions which aim to define youth are highly invested and pursued heavily by scores of young people. They are difficult to achieve, however. It is precisely the difficulty in manifesting these personas that makes them so perfect for an ideology of consumerism. Although young people may and will try to incorporate aspects of the mook or the midriff into their life, the mook and midriff are set up in such a way as to be impossible to acquire. The preoccupation our culture has with the importance of celebrity is an excellent example of this point. Although young boys may want to be like Fred Durst of the rock group Limp Bizkit, and young girls may want to be like Jennifer Lopez, they cannot be exactly like them. Young people are able, however, to buy the commodity goods that the celebrities endorse and therefore become some of what the mook and the midriff mean. These conceptions of youth and produced meanings are very effective in their attempt to command interpretation and to shape significance.

back | next