Breakthrough Writer

Unit One, Lesson 4: “Acting White” and “Working Class Whites”

“Acting White” by Stuart Buck 637-648

One. What does it mean when someone says in a poor African-American neighborhood “you’re acting white”?

Doing schoolwork is mocked.

Some black kids coming home from private school get beat up for “acting white.”

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, a black player, has been accused by other black players of acting white. This means he “toadies up” to the team’s management.

A study shows, we read in paragraph 3, that “black children nationwide become less popular if their grade-point average rises above 3.5.”

To aspire to join the middle-class by imitating behaviors that associated with whiteness can set off the charge “you’re acting white.”

Two. How do some suburban whites use the “you’re acting white” phenomenon to “get off the hook too easily”?

They’ll say to black people: “Your lack of success is your own fault for not embracing the work ethic and proper codes of dress and behavior.”

But like most things in life, the situation is more complicated than that.

In fact, if we look at American history, it was whites, not blacks, who first accused blacks, during Jim Crow, of “acting white.”

We read, “As historian Leon Litwack points out, nineteenth-century whites sometimes ‘equated black success with ‘uppityness,’ ‘impudence,’ ‘getting out of place,’ and pretensions toward racial equality.”

We read in paragraph 10 that it wasn’t until desegregation in the 1960s that blacks accused other blacks of “acting white.” In these racially mixed schools, many black children saw their black friends “turning to the other side” to make it in school and this feeling of abandonment and of being betrayed led to the “you’re acting white” charge.

This idea is further reinforced by African-American Spelman College president Beverly Daniel Tatum who says that black youth have not always had contempt for academic achievement. This contempt is a “post-desegregation phenomenon.”

When black schools disappeared, black images of success disappeared as well as black youth had to find their way in what could be a very hostile environment, a “white school.”

We read, “After desegregation, many black children were taught by white teachers who disliked them, did not care about their success, underestimated their capabilities, or—at the opposite extreme—coddled them out of guilt. Even when the white teachers did everything right, the black schoolchildren still, for the first time, faced the possibility of seeing ‘school’ as a place where success equaled seeking the approval of whites.”

I can say I have had African-American students tell me the last 30 years that they have taken college classes where the professors ignored them when they raised their hands. A whole semester passed by and these students never had one opportunity to participate in class discussion.

Three. How did desegregation in the schools lead to blacks turning on blacks with the “acting white” charge?

 

Blacks felt abandoned in mostly white schools where some blacks, who performed well academically, were perceived to have joined the white ranks.

 

At these schools a function called “tracking” kept the “better-prepared white students in a separate class from the black students.” Thus whites were perceived as having superior privileges and entitlements. And any black who wanted to join their ranks was “acting white.”

 

When blacks behaved in ways that didn’t conform to the black status quo, they were judged as rejecting the mainstream behavior.

 

For example, I had a black student who was accused of acting white by black kids at his school and he hung out mostly with Latinos at his high school because they didn’t have the same expectations as the black kids.

 

Four. Where else did the idea of “acting white” come from?

Since slavery and Jim Crow, some blacks who ingratiated themselves with whites, have been called Uncle Toms because they “submitted more readily to white racism,” and “special venom is directed to the insider who breaks ranks and treats outsiders with respect.”

Writing Prompt

In an essay, support, defend, or complicate the persuasiveness of Buck's argument about the existence of "acting white."

Brainstorm for a thesis that addresses the above prompt.

 

“Working Class Whites” by Angeline F. Price (648)

 

One. What two stereotypes does America have of poor whites?

 

Either they are “white trash” or “good country folk.”

 

As usual, stereotypes are dehumanizing, condescending, and ignorant, and fail to see the complexity of humanity.

 

The “id” is the criminal white working class; the “superego” is the innocent religious white poor who “nostalgize and idealize the desire for a simpler life . . .”

 

Two. What underlying hostility can we identify in poor white stereotypes?

 

Our country appears to be less and less about race and more and more about money. We judge others on their income, and their conformity to the myth of the “self-made man,” the clever, resourceful businessperson or entrepreneur who knows how to make a quick buck.

 

People who fail to conform to the above ideal violate our hope in a narrative that through hard work we can embrace material success and the American dream.

 

Poverty in others is an all too sober reminder of where we could end up if we run out of talent and luck.

A more complex view of poverty is expressed in a "viral" blog essay by Linda Tirado, "Why I Make Terrible Decisions."

There's no way to structure this coherently. They are random observations that might help explain the mental processes. But often, I think that we look at the academic problems of poverty and have no idea of the why. We know the what and the how, and we can see systemic problems, but it's rare to have a poor person actually explain it on their own behalf. So this is me doing that, sort of.

Rest is a luxury for the rich. I get up at 6AM, go to school (I have a full courseload, but I only have to go to two in-person classes) then work, then I get the kids, then I pick up my husband, then I have half an hour to change and go to Job 2. I get home from that at around 1230AM, then I have the rest of my classes and work to tend to. I'm in bed by 3. This isn't every day, I have two days off a week from each of my obligations. I use that time to clean the house and soothe Mr. Martini and see the kids for longer than an hour and catch up on schoolwork. Those nights I'm in bed by midnight, but if I go to bed too early I won't be able to stay up the other nights because I'll fuck my pattern up, and I drive an hour home from Job 2 so I can't afford to be sleepy. I never get a day off from work unless I am fairly sick. It doesn't leave you much room to think about what you are doing, only to attend to the next thing and the next. Planning isn't in the mix.

When I was pregnant the first time, I was living in a weekly motel for some time. I had a minifridge with no freezer and a microwave. I was on WIC. I ate peanut butter from the jar and frozen burritos because they were 12/$2. Had I had a stove, I couldn't have made beef burritos that cheaply. And I needed the meat, I was pregnant. I might not have had any prenatal care, but I am intelligent enough to eat protein and iron whilst knocked up.

I know how to cook. I had to take Home Ec to graduate high school. Most people on my level didn't. Broccoli is intimidating. You have to have a working stove, and pots, and spices, and you'll have to do the dishes no matter how tired you are or they'll attract bugs. It is a huge new skill for a lot of people. That's not great, but it's true. And if you fuck it up, you could make your family sick. We have learned not to try too hard to be middle-class. It never works out well and always makes you feel worse for having tried and failed yet again. Better not to try. It makes more sense to get food that you know will be palatable and cheap and that keeps well. Junk food is a pleasure that we are allowed to have; why would we give that up? We have very few of them.

The closest Planned Parenthood to me is three hours. That's a lot of money in gas. Lots of women can't afford that, and even if you live near one you probably don't want to be seen coming in and out in a lot of areas. We're aware that we are not "having kids," we're "breeding." We have kids for much the same reasons that I imagine rich people do. Urge to propagate and all. Nobody likes poor people procreating, but they judge abortion even harder.

Convenience food is just that. And we are not allowed many conveniences. Especially since the Patriot Act passed, it's hard to get a bank account. But without one, you spend a lot of time figuring out where to cash a check and get money orders to pay bills. Most motels now have a no-credit-card-no-room policy. I wandered around SF for five hours in the rain once with nearly a thousand dollars on me and could not rent a room even if I gave them a $500 cash deposit and surrendered my cell phone to the desk to hold as surety.

Nobody gives enough thought to depression. You have to understand that we know that we will never not feel tired. We will never feel hopeful. We will never get a vacation. Ever. We know that the very act of being poor guarantees that we will never not be poor. It doesn't give us much reason to improve ourselves. We don't apply for jobs because we know we can't afford to look nice enough to hold them. I would make a super legal secretary, but I've been turned down more than once because I "don't fit the image of the firm," which is a nice way of saying "gtfo, pov." I am good enough to cook the food, hidden away in the kitchen, but my boss won't make me a server because I don't "fit the corporate image." I am not beautiful. I have missing teeth and skin that looks like it will when you live on b12 and coffee and nicotine and no sleep. Beauty is a thing you get when you can afford it, and that's how you get the job that you need in order to be beautiful. There isn't much point trying.

Cooking attracts roaches. Nobody realizes that. I've spent a lot of hours impaling roach bodies and leaving them out on toothpick pikes to discourage others from entering. It doesn't work, but is amusing.

"Free" only exists for rich people. It's great that there's a bowl of condoms at my school, but most poor people will never set foot on a college campus. We don't belong there. There's a clinic? Great! There's still a copay. We're not going. Besides, all they'll tell you at the clinic is that you need to see a specialist, which seriously? Might as well be located on Mars for how accessible it is. "Low-cost" and "sliding scale" sounds like "money you have to spend" to me, and they can't actually help you anyway.

I smoke. It's expensive. It's also the best option. You see, I am always, always exhausted. It's a stimulant. When I am too tired to walk one more step, I can smoke and go for another hour. When I am enraged and beaten down and incapable of accomplishing one more thing, I can smoke and I feel a little better, just for a minute. It is the only relaxation I am allowed. It is not a good decision, but it is the only one that I have access to. It is the only thing I have found that keeps me from collapsing or exploding.

I make a lot of poor financial decisions. None of them matter, in the long term. I will never not be poor, so what does it matter if I don't pay a thing and a half this week instead of just one thing? It's not like the sacrifice will result in improved circumstances; the thing holding me back isn't that I blow five bucks at Wendy's. It's that now that I have proven that I am a Poor Person that is all that I am or ever will be. It is not worth it to me to live a bleak life devoid of small pleasures so that one day I can make a single large purchase. I will never have large pleasures to hold on to. There's a certain pull to live what bits of life you can while there's money in your pocket, because no matter how responsible you are you will be broke in three days anyway. When you never have enough money it ceases to have meaning. I imagine having a lot of it is the same thing.

Poverty is bleak and cuts off your long-term brain. It's why you see people with four different babydaddies instead of one. You grab a bit of connection wherever you can to survive. You have no idea how strong the pull to feel worthwhile is. It's more basic than food. You go to these people who make you feel lovely for an hour that one time, and that's all you get. You're probably not compatible with them for anything long-term, but right this minute they can make you feel powerful and valuable. It does not matter what will happen in a month. Whatever happens in a month is probably going to be just about as indifferent as whatever happened today or last week. None of it matters. We don't plan long-term because if we do we'll just get our hearts broken. It's best not to hope. You just take what you can get as you spot it.

I am not asking for sympathy. I am just trying to explain, on a human level, how it is that people make what look from the outside like awful decisions. This is what our lives are like, and here are our defense mechanisms, and here is why we think differently. It's certainly self-defeating, but it's safer. That's all. I hope it helps make sense of it.

Update: The response to this piece is overwhelming. I have had a lot of people ask to use my work. Please do. Share it with the world if you found value in it. Please link back if you can. If you are teaching, I am happy to discuss this with or clarify for you, and you can freely use this piece in your classes. Please do let me know where you teach. You can reach me on Twitter, @killermartinis. I set up an email at killermartinisbook@ gmail as well.

This piece has gone fully viral. People have been asking me to write, and how they can help. After enough people tried to send me paypal money, I set up a gofundme. Find it here. It promptly went insane. I have raised my typical yearly income as of this update. I have no idea what to say except thank you. I am going to speak with some money people who will make sure that I can't fuck this up, and I will use it to do good things with.

I've also set up a blog, which I hope you will find here.

Understand that I wrote this as an example of the thought process that we struggle with. Most of us are clinically depressed, and we do not get therapy and medication and support. We get told to get over it. And we find ways to cope. I am not saying that people live without hope entirely; that is not human nature. But these are the thoughts that are never too far away, that creep up on us every chance they get, that prey on our better judgement when we are tired and stressed and weakened. We maintain a constant vigil against these thoughts, because we are afraid that if we speak them aloud or even articulate them in our heads they will become unmanageably real.

Thank you for reading. I am glad people find value in it. Because I am getting tired of people not reading this and then commenting anyway, I am making a few things clear: not all of this piece is about me. That is why I said that they were observations. And this piece is not all of me: that is why I said that they were random observations rather than complete ones. If you really have to urge me to abort or keep my knees closed or wonder whether I can fax you my citizenship documents or if I really in fact have been poor because I know multisyllabic words, I would like to ask that you read the comments and see whether anyone has made your point in the particular fashion you intend to. It is not that I mind trolls so much, it's that they're getting repetitive and if you have to say nothing I hope you can at least do it in an entertaining fashion.

If, however, you simply are curious about something and actually want to have a conversation, I do not mind repeating myself because those conversations are valuable and not actually repetitive. They tend to be very specific to the asker, and I am happy to shed any light I can. I do not mind honest questions. They are why I wrote this piece.

Thank you all, so much. I don't know what life will look like next week, and for once that's a good thing. And I have you to thank.

 

 

 

 

Unit One, Lesson 3: Car Ads and Women's Magazines Face Bias

Car Ads Are Really About Self-Actualization, Independence, Freedom, and Purification

 

Escape the Banal Monotony of Your Wasted Existence by Buying a Land Rover

 

Another Message: You Will be Invincible and Safe Inside the Vehicle

 

Very common, as we read in today's essay, is the theme of connecting with pristine nature through the acquisition of the vehicle:

 

Alan Foljambe, "Car Advertising--Dominating Nature" 

One. What is the oxymoron or irony of car advertising? 

An oxymoron, or self-contradiction, is contained in the fact that cars are brutal toward our environment on one hand but are portrayed in ads as a benign and integral part of nature. They are "totems of freedom and interaction with the natural world" (para. 2). 

There are two types of green ads: alleviation, or dark green, which appeal to those consumers who are sensitive to the environment; and there's domination, light green, customers who look at Earth as a thing to be conquered and consumed with reckless disregard. 

Domination green appeals to a sense of privilege and entitlement and a need to "own" Earth by driving on its hostile terrain with a rugged SUV of some sort. 

The domination car is more than a car; it's a status symbol of individual strength, courage, and initiative. We read that the desert is often a symbol of "purification and spirituality" (achieved in a Lexus). 

Part of the ad's mirage or illusion in these domination car ads is its pristine image of nature as a backdrop to the rugged SUV, as if the vehicle does not pose a threat to nature when in fact it does. 

Some domination ads evidence infantile, selfish narcissism: The driver is ruining nature, but who cares? He's here to have "fun, excitement, and self-fulfillment" and the hell with anyone who might try to stop him. "Nature is my doormat; I'll do with it as I please."

Brainstorm a Thesis

Car is a status symbol.

Car is not a machine but an opportunity for self-transformation, freedom, independence, distinction.

A car embodies narcissism: desiring admiration from people while having complete disregard for others (wanting to run them off the road in your superior vehicle).

Be in nature while you pollute it: Have your cake and eat it too.

Enjoy your dreams of omnipotence.

Ads sell dreams and fantasies for those who are stuck in a rut and think a consumer experience is the solution to their problems.

Car ads cater to narcissism, frustration, materialism, and an infantile notion of the "good life" based on having recreation at the expense of Planet Earth.

Why do car ads focus more on fantasy than car's content and performance?

Should I argue that content isn't enough to compete against cars? That fantasy is essential? And if so, why?

Gloria Steinem, "Sex, Lies, and Advertising"

 

One. What is Steinem's biggest complaint?

That the tentacles of the ad industry infiltrate everything, including magazine content, so that chosen subject matter and opinions are biased and influenced from the corporate sponsors who want their products in a "healthy ecosystem." 

Could you have an article about the possible dangers of artificial sweetener, for example, of one of your sponsors is a company that makes saccharine? 

Could you have a women's magazine address skin rashes and possible cancer from certain perfumes when your sponsor is Prada, Christian Dior, or Versace? 

Two. What other complaints poured out in Steinem's diatribe?

1. The aforementioned sponsor effect on content; for example, they couldn't have negative film reviews because sponsors for the magazine feared the film would dump their ads. 

2. The dumbing down effect evidenced by showing women how to put on lipstick or apply suntan lotion as lame filler. 

3. The sameness effect:All the magazines are alike. 

4. Working in an ad-dominant world was like working in a male-dominant world: Everything was fine as long as you did what you were told. 

5. Too often the perception was that a women's magazine was really a shopping catalog and therefore couldn't be taken seriously as a work of journalism. 

6. "Real" magazines like Time and Newsweek didn't have to write gushing praise of automobiles to get auto ads; however, women's magazines had to writing lavish articles about perfume, moisturizer, and such to get those ads. In other words, there was a double-standard. 

7. Steinam wanted good car ads about the car's performance, but male ad people believed women wanted "cute colors." 

8. Some computer and electronics companies don't think women are "tech" enough to be interested in their products. 

9. By 1986, magazine costs rise 400 percent, but income from ads is flat. There's growing pressure for article "tie-ins" to product, so the magazine's integrity is threatened. Because of these pressures, many magazines become "one giant ad."

Three. What is most depressing about the article?

That a lack of demand for fiction, critical journalism, and independent thinking makes vital magazines almost an impossibility in the face commercial magazines, which shape the malleable, mindless consumer.

Mindless consumerism, lacking an appetite for heavy-hitting writing, is perhaps the most depressing point of the article.

We're talking about a small educated class that hungers for good writing and "the masses" who blindly consume ad copy while thinking they're enriching their "lifestyle."

Perhaps Just as Depressing

Women consumers are treated like superficial idiots who want fluff, beauty and diet aids, pink colors, etc., but they have no interest in real content. The advertisers have contempt for the female consumer.

Writing Prompt

Support, refute, or complicate the assertion that "virtually all content in women's magazines is a disguised form of advertising."

Brainstorm a thesis for the above prompt.

 

 

Unit One, Lesson 2: Schlosser and Corbett 222-245

Eric Schlosser, "Kid Customers" (222)

One. Why did kid advertising explode in the 1980s?

Busy parents, both with jobs, felt guilty for neglecting their children, so the 1980s began the reign of Consumer Parenting, in which parents bought their way out of parenting hell. Kid problem? Just buy something and the problem will go away.

The second force is that companies realized that brand loyalty was imprinted at an early age, so get them while they’re young. I'll call this the "Joe Camel Effect," the way ad characters seduce children into the product's world, sometimes for life. Imagine if Hello Kitty sold cigarettes. Or if Rainbow Dash sold bacon cheeseburgers. Evil would take over the world. 

The third force is the Nag Effect: Make children whine for something, create "leverage" and "pester power." 

Marketing professor James McNeal points out that companies make their product icons and mascots similar to parent figures, omnipotent, benevolent, necessary agents for living. 

Many marketers get inside kids' heads, penetrating their very dreams to mine data. Before the age of 6, the majority of dreams are about animals, so let's not be surprised by the sheer numbers of animal figures used to promote cereal like Tony the Tiger. 

Ronald McDonald has become a benign, fun-loving patriarch, an ambassador of good food and laughs as he escorts millions of children into McDonald's Utopia. 

Of course, the biggest way for companies to control young, malleable minds is to target children through use of the TV. 

Essay Assignment

Develop a thesis that analyzes the complicity between parents and companies to create a substitute for real parenting.

Brainstorm for a thesis that addresses the above writing prompt.

 

Julia Corbett, “A Faint Green Sell: Advertising and the Natural World” (229)

One. How did the consumers’ relationship change as reflected in advertising?

In the early 1990s, there was a green boom to buy products that were biodegradable and recyclable but the fad ended and was replaced with the worship of nature or the idea that nature was a worthy aspiration, that certain products would help us connect with nature. I’m thinking of Subaru and Jeep and Patagonia outerwear.  

Corbett mentions beer like Hamms, but I’m thinking Corona at the beach.

Two. What is the form of analysis used in Corbett’s essay?

She intends to develop a “critical analysis of the symbolic communicative discourse of advertising, viewing nature-as-backdrop ads as cultural icons of environmental values embedded in our social system.”

What does this mean?

Images can be more powerful than words in establishing strong visceral reactions in the consumer. These reactions are about the awe of nature and the myth of connecting with nature through the purchase of a “nature item.” Further, we read that a lot of ad images give us “distorted, inauthentic, or exaggerated discourse” that gives us a twisted and fake sense of what it means to connect with nature.

Three. Why do ads have such strong cultural power and psychological influence?

Because they are “repetitive and ubiquitous” so that they soak our brains and inculcate messages that become mythic doctrines. This is especially true if we are mindless consumers with no critical thinking skills.

Four. What is the thesis in Corbett’s essay?

She argues that the “green in advertising is extremely faint by examining and developing six related concepts”:

1. Business is “brown” or anti-nature so that “green ads” are an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms.
2. Advertising commodifies the natural world and attaches material value to non-material goods, treating the sacred of nature as a thing that can be bought and such a lie is a profane lie. The apotheosis of a consumer good is achieved by elevating it to something that exists in Edenic Nature.
3. Ads portray our relationship with nature in a corrupt, anthropocentric, narcissistic manner. In other words, we are the lords of nature.
4. Ads portray nature as innocent and idealized without the real majesty and sometimes terror and horror that are part of nature.
5. Ads depict nature in a way that makes us connect with it in a phony, unsatisfactory way so we buy more and more products to fill the vacuum. We call this impoverishment through substitution.
6. Ads dominate and overshadow alternative, at times necessary subversive messages about nature.

Brown Advertising

A consumer economy is based on constant growth and this constant growth, which is about taking infinite resources, is at odds with a sustainable planet.

Nature as Commodity

Nature becomes property that can be bought in the mythos of advertising. We don’t run out and buy nature. Rather, ads work on us in more insidious ways, tapping into already existing desires and channeling those desires to the advertised object.

When we give higher meaning to an object, for example, a Subaru becoming equivalent to the rider of the Subaru becoming one of Nature’s High Priests, we call that apotheosis.

Volvo becomes the apotheosis of safety.

BMW becomes the apotheosis of reproductive success.

Sea turtles become the apotheosis of the Return to Paradise.

A Monster drink becomes the apotheosis of commitment and discipline to one’s training routine.

L.L. Bean clothes become the apotheosis of leisure time with friends in the pristine outdoors.

For the Pleasure of Humans

We are barbarians in the way we devour nature for our selfish ends but ads make us feel like entitled barbarians. We are the lords of nature. This world is for us, to us, and by us. We are the alpha and the omega. Nature without us is irrelevant.

Ads will show truckers, fishers, divers and recreational enthusiasts who think they are one in nature but in actuality they are mindless hedonists, seeking pleasure for themselves through their toys.

Another message from truck and jeep commercials is that humans can conquer the frontier of nature, that technology rules over the natural world.

The attitudes described above are ignorant and narcissistic, the mentality of a mindless consumer with no critical thinking skills.

Nature as Sublime

Ads distort nature, making it appear innocent, pristine, and accommodating to human endeavors. This is a child’s narcissistic fantasy.

In ads, the people in nature are always beautiful and clean, but talk to a real camper and you’ll find they’re covered with bug bites, bloody thorn cuts, poison ivy rashes, sweaty, stinky clothes, and, if in a tropical setting, jungle rot in which the feet decay from too much moisture.

There are also many casualties in the natural setting. Scorpions, spiders, snakes, carnivores and such can all kill the human species. Floods, typhoons, malaria, earthquakes, tornadoes, dengue fever, lice, parasites, Ebola and other magnificent manifestations of nature also kill millions of people a year but this truth is rarely conveyed in a commercial.

A Natural Disconnect

The more we try to connect with nature through being consumers of advertised products, the more disconnected we become from nature, compelling us to buy more and more worthless consumer products so that we are trapped in a vicious cycle.

We absorb media messages in our unconscious, what is called the “sleeper effect.” Soaps and detergents with labels like “mountain air” and “springtime fresh” become associations with nature. In fact, these products have NO CONNECTION to nature but advertising has taught us the contrary, that an artificial smell is somehow more natural than the human body or clothes in the absence of cloying artificial chemicals.

Advertising Does Not Stand Alone

Advertising dominates oppositional voices about nature.

Companies tell us that plastic is this amazing thing when in fact smaller voices have a contrary opinion.

Essay Writing Option page 245 Reading the Sings Number 4

Adopting the perspective of Laurence Shames (“The More Factor,” p.90), write an essay in which you argue whether the “faint green” advertising Corbett describes is an expression of the American desire for “more.”

Brainstorm for a thesis that addresses the above writing prompt.

 

 

Unit One, Lesson 1: Drumright and Murphy “How Advertising Practitioners View Ethics” (199) and Jennifer Pozner “Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ Backlash” (219)

Drumright and Murphy “How Advertising Practitioners View Ethics” (199)

One. What is part of the ethically bankrupt mentality that defines some advertisers?

One, there is indifference to ethics, which is a non-issue in a profit-only driven business. In fact, ethics may be looked at as a detriment to creativity and effectiveness and in the end profit. To be indifferent, these advertisers will employ “moral muteness,” keep their mouths shut.

Why lose a contract to tobacco or unhealthy food or addictive pharmaceuticals?

Secondly, these advertisers will exercise moral myopia, which means there’s a distorted moral vision, either short-sighted or outright blind to ethical issues and “unintended social consequences.”

This moral myopia is brilliantly rendered in the 2014 film Nightcrawler. 

Two. What are the multiple rationalizations employed by unethical advertisers?

1. “Consumers are too smart for unethical advertising; therefore, there are natural checks and balances that make it unnecessary for me to worry about ethics.”
2. “We are not the High Priests of Ethics. That domain belongs to parents and the law. We are simply following society’s trends. If you’re looking to us for ethical standards, you’ve got some serious problems, not the least of which you should begin worrying about creating your own ethical standards.”
3. “As long as I don’t break the law, I have no ethical concerns. If I’m following the law, then I am ethical, right?”
4. “The First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech gives me the right to make any message I want without breaking the law. So don’t infringe on my free speech rights unless you want me to question your ethics.”
5. “My loyalty is to my client and not to some vague overreaching ethical principle.” This is called “going native.”
6. “Since I’m not aware of any ethical concerns due to the rigorous work I do as I champion the interests of my clients, I have no ethical responsibilities.” This is called “ostrich syndrome.”
7. “Opening my mouth about ethical concerns may anger my boss or my clients; therefore, silence is the best policy.” This is called “moral muteness.”
8. “What I do at work doesn’t define who I am as an ethical person. My work person and my non-work person are separate entities.” This is called “compartmentalization.”
9. “My job is to fulfill my clients’ wishes, not dictate moral issues to my customers.” (“Client is always right.”)
10. “As soon as we impose an ethical code on our business model, our clients will find a new company who’s uncompromising about meeting their clients’ needs. Someone is going to get the job no matter what. It might as well be me."
    
11. “You show ethical scruples in one area and soon enough you’ll find your entire business model is saddled with inconvenient ethical issues that prove deleterious to my business.” (Pandora’s box)

Three. What type of behavior informs more conscientious advertisers?

They “see and talk” about ethical concerns without fear of reprisals.

They have “authentic norms” of ethical behavior, so that they have a core of morality as opposed to being business mercenaries.

They can laugh and ridicule unethical ideas as a healthy way of revoking those ideas.

They have the moral courage to say no to something that crosses the line.

They have a moral imagination so that if they lose an account due to sticking to their principles, they don’t lay off employees; rather, they find creative ways to keep those employees on the job.

Essay Option: Reading the Sign: Number 4: Connecting Texts: In an essay, support, refute, or complicate the authors’ belief that “Advertising professionals, like all speakers, have a responsibility to make judgments about speech” (para. 16). To develop your ideas, consult selections about using sources in academic writing, and think about whether university standards should apply to the so-called real world. See Patti S. Caravello’s “Judging Quality on the Web” (p. 69) and Trip Gabriel’s “For Students in the Internet Age, No Shame in Copy and Paste” (p. 71)

Prewrite for a thesis that addresses the assignment above.

Jennifer Pozner “Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ Backlash” (219)

One. What makes new line of Dove “firming crème” unusual in its misogyny?

The product is offensive. Usually, the ad, not the product, is chafing. “Cellulite is unsightly, women’s natural aging process is shameful, and flabby thighs are flawed and must be fixed . . .”

Two. What stirs Pozner’s hostility against Richard Roeper?

Pozner says he’s sexist in desiring thin over plump women models and that Roeper erroneously asserts that “being a pig” is natural to a man. He even wears his sexism as a “badge of pride.”

He would have us believe that men are victimized for being forced to see plump billboard models right outside their window.

Three. What “debate” did the plump models create?

Should we have more realistic looking models or go back to the anorexic smoking ghoulish skeleton girls with pointy hips and osteoporosis? As Pozner observes, these skeleton models have “equated starvation and drug addiction with women’s beauty and value for decades.”

Essay Option:

Reading the Signs, page 222, Number 2:

Write an argumentative essay that validates, rejects, or complicates Pozner’s claim that “the ‘real beauty’ backlash underscores just how necessary Dove’s campaign is—however hypocritical the product they’re selling may be” (para. 13). [You might want to consult Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth or book reviews of that book]

Prewrite for a thesis that addresses the above assignment.

Beauty Myth review from NYTimes Archive