Design commentary as propaganda
Dec. 9th, 2006 11:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusIt may well be because I came to it immediately after listening to a podcast on socialism by Tony Benn and reading an article by the author of Why Do People Hate America?, but the fascinating 1958 design film "The American Look" struck me as outrageous peacetime propaganda -- a highly selective arrangement of the tools of a culture in order to show that culture in the best possible light. (Click the picture to watch the whole 28 minute film.)
"The American Look (A Tribute to the Men and Women who Design)" was financed by Chevrolet, and a chunk of it showcases the design of their 1959 Impala model at the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. But it could just as well have been financed by the government, so relentlessly does it harp on the themes of freedom and individualism. "By the way things look as well as the way they perform," crows the narrator over a relentlessly triumphalist orchestral score, "our homes acquire new grace, new glamour, new accomodations expressing not only the American love of beauty but also the basic freedom of the American people which is the freedom of individual choice."
Oddly enough, though, the film calls to mind nothing so much as the North Korean propaganda movies that were showing at Christian Kracht's booklaunch. And, just as insecurity lay behind the confident, Utopian tone of those films, so it underpins this American film too. Certainly the late 1950s was a time of optimism, affluence and consumerist expansion in the US, a time still bathed in the glow of the military victories of World War II. But there's something uneasy in the film's harping on the essential Americanness of Modernist design, when so much of the architecture and furniture design on display here looks more Scandinavian or German. Only the grotesque, elongated, decorative and gothic Impala looks like a truly American design, and it strikes a very different note to the restrained, sparse and spare Modernist designs. (Better suited, in fact, to Postmodernism -- which raises the question of whether pomo came along simply because Modernism wasn't essentially American enough.)
The Impala's Space Age streamlining points to another insecurity, one I outlined in my AIGA Voice article Creativity and the Sputnik Shock. The central thesis of this film -- the idea that good design goes hand-in-hand with American "freedom of individual choice" -- was at that very moment being disproved by the success of the Soviet space program. On October 4, 1957 the communists had successfully launched the first satellite into Earth orbit. America reeled, throughout the late 50s, with a keen sense of its own educational, technical and creative inadequacy. As a result, money was poured into creativity research -- and into design and lifestyle propaganda like this film.
All propaganda, no matter how Utopian, optimistic, and triumphalist, raises fears; all that's left unsaid seems to gather just outside the frame, a threatening black cloud. In my case, when I watch "The American Look", I don't just worry about the people excluded from the ideal scenarios depicted. I also wonder whether all design writing -- and I've done my share -- isn't just a more subtle version of this kind of propaganda. Just like the film, we design writers like to point to the "ever-improving good taste" of the public. We like to select only the most advanced and beautiful designs and suggest that, soon, they'll predominate. And we like to evoke futuristic scenarios like the ones in the final shots of this film, in which rocket cars and dome houses dominate the landscape. Yet fifty years after this film was made, mock-Colonial and faux-rustic farmhouse styles are more likely to define the American design landscape than bubble jets and space craft. Put it down to "the freedom of individual choice", perhaps.
"The American Look (A Tribute to the Men and Women who Design)" was financed by Chevrolet, and a chunk of it showcases the design of their 1959 Impala model at the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. But it could just as well have been financed by the government, so relentlessly does it harp on the themes of freedom and individualism. "By the way things look as well as the way they perform," crows the narrator over a relentlessly triumphalist orchestral score, "our homes acquire new grace, new glamour, new accomodations expressing not only the American love of beauty but also the basic freedom of the American people which is the freedom of individual choice."
Oddly enough, though, the film calls to mind nothing so much as the North Korean propaganda movies that were showing at Christian Kracht's booklaunch. And, just as insecurity lay behind the confident, Utopian tone of those films, so it underpins this American film too. Certainly the late 1950s was a time of optimism, affluence and consumerist expansion in the US, a time still bathed in the glow of the military victories of World War II. But there's something uneasy in the film's harping on the essential Americanness of Modernist design, when so much of the architecture and furniture design on display here looks more Scandinavian or German. Only the grotesque, elongated, decorative and gothic Impala looks like a truly American design, and it strikes a very different note to the restrained, sparse and spare Modernist designs. (Better suited, in fact, to Postmodernism -- which raises the question of whether pomo came along simply because Modernism wasn't essentially American enough.)
The Impala's Space Age streamlining points to another insecurity, one I outlined in my AIGA Voice article Creativity and the Sputnik Shock. The central thesis of this film -- the idea that good design goes hand-in-hand with American "freedom of individual choice" -- was at that very moment being disproved by the success of the Soviet space program. On October 4, 1957 the communists had successfully launched the first satellite into Earth orbit. America reeled, throughout the late 50s, with a keen sense of its own educational, technical and creative inadequacy. As a result, money was poured into creativity research -- and into design and lifestyle propaganda like this film.All propaganda, no matter how Utopian, optimistic, and triumphalist, raises fears; all that's left unsaid seems to gather just outside the frame, a threatening black cloud. In my case, when I watch "The American Look", I don't just worry about the people excluded from the ideal scenarios depicted. I also wonder whether all design writing -- and I've done my share -- isn't just a more subtle version of this kind of propaganda. Just like the film, we design writers like to point to the "ever-improving good taste" of the public. We like to select only the most advanced and beautiful designs and suggest that, soon, they'll predominate. And we like to evoke futuristic scenarios like the ones in the final shots of this film, in which rocket cars and dome houses dominate the landscape. Yet fifty years after this film was made, mock-Colonial and faux-rustic farmhouse styles are more likely to define the American design landscape than bubble jets and space craft. Put it down to "the freedom of individual choice", perhaps.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-10 09:56 am (UTC)It seems to me you are a touch too sensitive about imagined slights against your clearly steadfast belief in American supremacy. Your strawman arguments against Russian Communism, when all Nick references is a podcast on socialism, is proof enough. But if you're in any doubt please note Nick's final words in his post; a (mild) paean to all-too-"American" freedom and individual choice that pokes a pretty big ironic and dare I say patriotic hole in propaganda, advertising or even design writing as a tool for social engineering.
bricology
Date: 2006-12-10 11:35 am (UTC)He's not arguing supremacy, he's arguing parity.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-10 06:44 pm (UTC)I might dismiss claims of America being "deeply insecure" and having "a keen sense of its own educational, technical and creative inadequacy" as merely the result of mistaken received opinion, but we've been down this road with Nick too often before, such as here (http://imomus.livejournal.com/218482.html) where he tried to twist old and dubious statistics to "prove" that America was every imaginable evil, and here (http://imomus.livejournal.com/217957.html) where (among other things) he labels Americans "vulgar imperialistic puritans". In these examples, and others, Nick characterizes Americans as bad, America as evil, and goes data mining for support of his claims. He seems to be unwilling to separate stereotypes of Americans from the reality of our extreme diversity, and equally unwilling to separate our often bad top government officials from our national identity. It's all very French. Call us "imperialist pigs" while wearing our Levis and consuming Coca-Cola.
I don't believe in "American supremacy" except where it comes to quantifiable issues, such as the "space race" (long an interest of mine) or what nation accepted more Modernist designer emigres than any other. I believe in "American preferable" when it comes to the main alternatives -- the USSR and China -- nations that Nick seems to be (rather naively, IMO) enamored with of late. I will be the first to criticize American governments and corporations, but I would no more characterize America or Americans than I would attempt to characterize Scotland or the Scottish; it's rude and inevitably inaccurate to do so. And this anti-America/American sentiment is also remarkably glib. Who isn't an anti-American pundit nowadays?!
I like reading Nick's posts most of the time. I think he's a keen observer of the arts, and an often-interesting observer of cultures, but the closer he gets to politics, the worse. And when he launches into yet another one of his "Americans are boors and America is a dangerous and bad nation" tirades, he becomes just another outsider-pundit, albeit one clever enough to -- in the same post -- accuse America as not really being Modernist or having its own Modernist designers, and being fixated upon streamlining and the "space age". He wants it both ways, so long as the claims appear to support his thesis and increase his readership. I sometimes wonder if that's what all this is about.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-11 01:10 am (UTC)With regard to the substance of the post I don't see where Nick is so down on "...the themes of freedom and individualism", but I do see where he is worried "about the people excluded from the ideal scenarios depicted". Propaganda or advertising of any sort is produced for a specific reason, and if you'd rather not acknowledge the impetus presented by Sputnik and the resulting insecurities it produced in American top officials, that's your baggage. It is one of the many jobs of artists and art writers to examine these dynamics and critique or expose/express them publicly for the purpose of (hopefully) enlightening ones audience. But you can only ever lead a horse to water.
By the way as a sidebar, as a de facto empire running amok nowadays I would say some healthy self-reflection on the part of "America" is definitely in order. If that means making pointed criticisms on its Modernist propaganda (not America itself it should be noted), as Nick has done and ponder the world that actually matters and only exists outside the propagandists/advertisers frame, so be it. A little more pondering in that area in 2001-2003 might have averted America's bloody fix it is in now.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-11 04:56 am (UTC)I would assert that the two main alternatives to the US are indeed Russia and China, and have been so since the end of WWII. What other nations have had the same global influence? If you were old enough to remember the Cold War, you'd know that the balance of power was anything but a false dilemma; it was played out all over the planet. What was at stake was nothing less than the future of the world, and Britain and Europe were nowhere near as active in the struggle against the Sino-Soviet bloc during that time. Anyway, I don't have an "animus towards Nick", I have an objection to his occasional political mis-characterizations.
And I'd be careful if I were you before you go mis-characterizing my positions and statements on the space race, a subject that I've extensively researched over the past 25 years or so. While a Russian first theorized about satellites back around the turn of the century, nothing came of his ideas for another 50 years. It was Arthur C. Clarke who published the nuts-and-bolts concept for the satellite, in 1945, which was read by scientists in the USSR. And it was the US who started making the first satellite, in late 1954. The fact that the Russians happened to get (a rather useless) one into orbit a few months ahead of us had more to do with their reckless pursuit of "claiming space" than with any superiority the USSR space program had over its equivalent in the US. Even Khrushchev had ridiculed the Sputnik project as a "grapefruit". With few exceptions, the Russian space program was well behind ours, which was reflected in the failure rate of their missions.
>>By the way as a sidebar, as a de facto empire running amok nowadays I would say some healthy self-reflection on the part of "America" is definitely in order.<<
First, America is hardly a "de facto empire running amok"; if it were, the world would be a far different place. Your hyperbole aside, America is the only democratic superpower of the past 50 years, and it has a current administration who has done some very stupid things -- things, I might remind you, that the majority of Americans neither decided nor approve of. Is this news to anyone, anywhere? Of course not. But Nick knows that America is an easy target because it's disliked by people in many places who envy its dominance, and because few on the Left are willing to challenge even the grossest distortion. The "pondering" that you recommend is, and always has been, an American trait. Indeed, of the 3 dominant nations on earth in the past half-century, we're the only one who has a history of engaging in such critical reflection. We don't need Nick or anyone else to point out our government's failings; any American reader of ClickOpera is well aware of them. Nor do I think that most of us would find it sensible to try to point out any failings of Scotland or the Scots, or to criticize Great Britain.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-11 06:10 am (UTC)If you can't be honest or even correct about what you yourself have written, what use is it for me to engage you at all? Where's your "power of critical self-reflection", let alone your Nation's? If you want to label me as somehow anti-American too, as I'm sure it is your wont, then allow me to define it as I see fit; It is this utter incapacity to see yourselves as everybody else does. Nobody on earth of any consequence dislikes America because of "envy" for its "dominance". That is a true (and truly stupid) mischaracterization of the highest order. Most people dislike America, particularly since 9/11/01, for its utterly irresponsible use of power. If you can't see that then you're really not worth my time.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-11 09:23 am (UTC)You have indeed mis-characterized my position, and I've said as much, as is my right when being mis-characterized. Sorry if you don't understand the difference between "defending American supremacy (and) dueling over American prestige" and what I was doing -- namely correcting Nick's revisionist history.
>>If you can't be honest or even correct about what you yourself have written, what use is it for me to engage you at all?<<
You have yet to point out a single example of my being dishonest or incorrect, but that hasn't stopped you from suggesting both faults. That doesn't say much for your credibility, nor does your being an anonymous poster.
>>It is this utter incapacity to see yourselves as everybody else does. Nobody on earth of any consequence dislikes America because of "envy" for its "dominance". That is a true (and truly stupid) mischaracterization of the highest order. Most people dislike America, particularly since 9/11/01, for its utterly irresponsible use of power. If you can't see that then you're really not worth my time.<<
Well then it's a good thing that I never asked for your time, Mr. Anonymous. Nice "no true Scotsman" fallacy you've got going there -- "nobody...of any consequence", whoever they might be.
I assure you that I am quite capable of seeing America and Americans the way that even our harshest critics do; that doesn't make them right, merely understandable. Who hates America the most? Probably the Wahhabists. But I'm afraid I can't take too seriously the criticisms of religious zealots who espouse jihads and have no concept of personal freedom or independence, much less the world outside their borders. Now then, where were we?
Ah yes -- your claim that "most people dislike America". Amazing. I'm a pretty well-traveled guy, having lived for a year in Europe and spent many, many more months traveling around Britain and Europe. I visit Japan once or twice a year. I talk to people on my travels. The only person who ever expressed anything resembling "dislike" of America was one Turk in Rotterdam. Some others with whom I've had political conversations expressed things they disliked about various American administrations, or about environmental policies, or even about American pop culture, but all of them seemed to be able to tell the difference between those functions of America and the nation itself, much less its 300 million diverse citizens.
But apparently that distinction is lost on you, as well as Nick. "America" doesn't have an "irresponsible use of power"; that would be the Bush Administration. Last time I checked, a nation's power was a neutral tool, and in the case of the US, it has not only done stupid things like invade Iraq, but also save much of the free world in the last two World Wars. And I think it's safe to presume that you're not old enough to remember those either.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-11 12:55 pm (UTC)