Commodification of subversion

Commodification of subversion:

• not just protest songs always about the power of the individual
• emphasis on their economic power & lifestyle
• Run-DMC secured a million dollar deal with Adidas after getting their audience wave their Adidas shoes in the air
• increased Courvoisier sales
• young black consumers now account for approx. 60-85% of Hennessy‟s US sales
• Busta Rhyme ft. P-Diddy ‘Pass the Courvoisier: Part II (2002)

Subverting subversion:

• in 1999, TIME reported that hip-hop was America's top- selling music genre, with sales of 81 million CDs
• in 2000, hip-hop sales constituted 13% of all music sales
• Roc-A-Fella (owned by Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter), which
• straddles fashion, music and film, in 2001 was worth $300 million
• Source: Billboard cited by Ta-Nehisi Coates in „Hip-hop‟s down beat‟ in TIME (17 August 2007)

Culture Wars

Cultures of Resistance: Hip Hop

Three distinct elements:

• Music/ Lyrics (dj-ing/ rapping)
• Dance (break-dancing/ b-boys)
• Graphic (graphing/design)

Use of mixing/ sampling/ subverting makes hip-hop the epitome of postmodern practise.

Afrika Bumbataa and the zulu nation

Subverting = to destroy/ ruin/ overthrow completely

Graffiti

'The superhill gangs - rappers delight'

N.W.A.

• ‘F*** Tha Police’
• (1989)
• FBI contacted record label about album contents
• 1990 – court in Tennessee judged it “obscene”Ice T‟s Body Count
• ‘Cop Killer’(1991)

Other Incident

• 1991 - Rodney King arrested & beaten by four white LAPD officers
• 1992 – despite the beating being videoed, three police officers were acquitted (jury made up of x10 white, x1 Hispanic, x1 Asian)
• LA riots started the evening after the verdict
• 53 people died
• election year in US
• Bush/Quayle campaign targeted violent
• hip-hop as a causal factor!
• bomb threats against record company

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

• total control of all media formats
• total “branding” of a people
• Paul Joseph Goebbels: Reichsminister of Propaganda,1933 to 1945
• revolutionised propaganda e.g. ‘The Eternal Jew’ (1940)
• employed the entertainment industry e.g. ‘The Triumph of the Will’ (1935) dir. Leni Reifenstahl

Designers:

Walter Heck:

graphic designer

designed the Schutzstaffel

(SS) insignia Dr. Karl Diebitsch:

Artist

Together designed the all-black SS uniform, introduced 1932

Swastika:

• good luck symbol in Indo-European culture
• Sanskrit "svastika“; means "good to be"
• Hitler responsible for it‟susage by the Nazis:
• "I myself, meanwhile, after innumerable attempts, hadlaid down a final form; a flag with a red background, a white disk, and a black swastika in the middle. After long trials I also found a definite proportion between the size of the flag and the size of the white disk, as well as the shape and thickness of the swastika.“
• Adolf Hitler Mein Kampf (1926)

NB: Resistance within Nazi Germany :

• „The White Rose‟
• pacifist, intellectual group
• students and a professor form Munich
• University
• leaflet campaign
• The Edelweiss Pirates‟
• working class activists

Posters Continued:

Food and Consumption

Safety

Posters

Morale (UK poster campaigns)

Security (UK Poster campaign)

Protest Graphics 2

Roger Fenton's 1855 photo of the Crimean war

War and Subversion:

“Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to the totalitarian state.”

Noam Chomsky (2002) Media Control, pp.20-21

World War II

• 1939-1945 UK

• National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939

• all men 18-41 liable for conscription

• National Service 1941

• unmarried women between 20-30 called up

• birth of modern propaganda techniques

  used to generate public support for war

  used to mobilise non-combatants i.e.

• civilians, in support of the “war effort”

Posters for Recruitment:

Trademarks

Bass Red Triangle:

• Bass & Co Brewery was established by William Bass in 1777
• pioneer in international brand marketing
• Red Triangle for pale ale; Red Diamond for their strong ale
• first trademark to be registered in Britain in 1876

Bar in den Folies-Bergère by Edouard Manet (1882)

• a brand is a product + its trademark, name, reputation and the associations built up around it via advertising, product placements, etc
• brands function to associate human values with corporations & their products
• in order to associate themselves with a specific identity, corporations often
• shows the type of person that uses their products
• brands are supposed to personify what a corporation stands for; its ideology
• corporations generally produce so many diverse products that brand identities are a way to unify & solidify their presence in consumers‟ lives
• if you‟ve had a good experience with a brand before you‟re more likely to try something new by the same brand

• many blamed the Great Depression (1929- 1939) on corporate greed & mismanagement
• in an attempt to restore people‟s faith in corporations, “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) appeared in the 1930s
• different to the philanthropy of preceding eras, where land (parks), libraries, hospitals, art, etc, was gifted to the nation or local area by the wealthy
• corporations endeavour to market themselves as invested in society & responsive to consumer needs
• however, corporations cannot be concerned with “externalities” unless they impact on profit
• “The corporation‟s legally defined mandate is to pursue, relentlessly and without exception, its own self-interest, regardless of the often harmful consequences it might cause to others.”
• Joel Bakan, Professor of Law, University of British Columbia

Culture jammers - subvert and interrupt the language of branding

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