Most people look at commercials as a chance to get up, stretch, and grab another Klondike bar from the freezer before Melrose Place resumes. But, as the riveting documentary The Ad and the Ego makes clear, restless viewers are missing out on a seamier show. From the billboards that line highways to the plugs that saturate magazines and television, advertising is one of the most powerful forces shaping our culture.
Set to a brilliant original score by noise artists Negativland, The Ad and the Ego traces the evolution of advertising and its impact on our world. Though the hour-long video has come under attack for its MTV quick-cut visuals, this pace is what makes it successful. Juxtaposed with thought-provoking narration, the seemingly benign ads take on a nefarious air.
"Advertising is designed to create endless self-criticism, all sorts of anxieties, all sorts of doubts, then to offer the entire world of consumer goods as salvation," intones Chapman University professor Bernard McGrane as the film cuts to a familiar moisturizer commercial warning 24-year-old women of the horrors of dry, aging skin. Our unwavering faith in science, The Ad and the Ego argues, supports the belief that the right product will make our mouths “baking-soda clean,” attract mates, maintain stable families, and avoid social embarrassment. The only glitch is that despite advances in technology, science has yet to develop an elixir that fulfills our most basic emotional desires.
Refreshingly, The Ad and the Ego’s critique does not condemn advertising, but rather acknowledges its influence. Filmmakers Harold Boihem and Chris Emmanouilides hope to raise awareness of the danger posed by a few wealthy companies controlling the means of communication and to dispel the belief that government is the only impediment to our freedom.
Despite our insistence that we are impervious to corporate-sponsored manipulation, we can all recall a time when we yearned for a nicer car, faster computer, or smoother skin. "‘I don’t pay any attention to ads, I don’t look at them, I just tune them out, they don’t have any effect on me’ – I hear this most often from young men wearing Budweiser caps," notes media critic Jean Kilbourne. The Ad and the Ego may not soothe your worries, but it will change the way you look at them.
The Ad and the Ego: US$49.95. California Newsreel: +1 (415) 621 6196.
This article originally appeared in the September issue of Wired magazine.
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