Postmodern Irony – No Logo is a Logo – see also www.nologo.com. It is a marketed artifact that simultaneously mobilises and subverts the power/knowledge of logos

Gender is marked by the letters of the gender-identifying forename NaOmi

The black (masculinity) is contrasted with the red (feminity). The symbolism of colour/difference to signify gender (and vice-versa)

Red/No is feminine/NaOmi; Black is masculine/Logo

 

 

Gender and Consumption (2)

 

Power is Nothing Without Control

Pirelli is a tyre firm with a reputation for producing calendars with pictures of beautiful women, scantily clad, in provocative poses — the prototypical ‘pin-up’.

[How should we `read’ the Carl Lewis image? One clue lies in the fact that though Lewis is male, in the ad he is wearing elegant, high-heeled red shoes!

This image works by the marking of ‘difference’. The conventional identification of Lewis with black male athletes and with a sort of ‘supermasculinity’ is disturbed and undercut by the invocation of his ‘femininity’ —and what marks this is the signifier of the red shoes.

The sexual and racial ‘message’ is rendered ambiguous. The super-male black athlete may not be all he seems. The ambiguity is amplified when we compare this image with all the other images — the stereotypes we are accustomed to see — of black athletes in the press. Its meaning is inter-textual — i.e. it requires to be read ‘against the grain’.

Signifying `Sex’ and `Gender’

Ambiguity and substitutability of terms (e.g. use of term `gender’ to identify `sex’ - `Male = Masculine)

Problematising the reductionism of sex = identity

Sex – Material (biological) difference

Male/Female : assumption of clear/binary divisions

Trans-sexual (conflict between sex and gender?)

Erotic – physical arousal

Gender – Symbolic (cultural) Difference

Cultural significance attributed to sexual differences

Gendered artefacts (e.g. dress). Emotional `arousal’/comfort

Gendered practices (e.g. sexual practices are negotiated through gendered identities). Venus and Mars.

Gender as a `grid of intelligibility’ held in place through relations of power

`Sexual Politics’ – `really’/mostly about `gender’?

Changing meaning /symbolic significance of sexual identity

Gender signifies difference – masculine v. feminine

Difference is actively constructed and `consumed’

Difference presents possibility for hierarchy – inequality and domination

Gender identities constructed within relations of power that it reproduces. Patriarchy

Displaying and maintaining difference is potential source of insecurity. Issue of confirmation.

Consumption of goods/services to alleviate insecurity (e.g. about gender identity). Gender identity-affirming products. Imagined pleasures. Death instinct?

Operation of power permits/restricts/legitimises practices of display/maintenance of gender identity

Sexual artifacts/practices in Novels?

In Processes of Production? (a)

In Processes of Consumption? (b)

Gendered artifacts/practices in Novels?

In Processes of Production? (a)

In Processes of Consumption? (b)

A. Pin-ups

B. Glamour photos

C. Gendered Divisions of Labour/ Domination of Decision-Making

D. Pint of Beer. Marlborough ad

Patriarchy(/Matriarchy) as Gender Hierarchy

Ownership and Control

Wealth. Inheritance

Decision-making - spheres

Hierarchies in Production

Gendered divisions of labour

Job segregation, hierarchical position, status, remuneration

Hierarchies in Consumption

Gendered divisions of purchase and use

(Re) production of images/fantasies for consumption within work organizations

`The sale and marketing of commodities and services is constructed in ways which embody particular ideas about who is the `normal consumer’. By buying particular commodities and services, we buy into these ideas. We are constituted as particular subjects by our consumption of the products of the organization’ (Knights and Morgan, `Theory, Consumption and the Service Sector in J. Hassard and M. Parker (eds), Towards a New Theory of Orgnizations, pp137-8

Leaping on the Brand Wagon
Unifying Producer and Consumer With Corporate Identity

From Making Things to Marketing Images

Product Differentiation rather than Production Efficiency as source of Added-Value. Flexible accumulation is `marked by a direct confrontation with the rigidities of Fordism. It rests on flexibility with respect to labour markets, products and patterns of consumption’ D. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, p. 147

Branding of commodities – from Quaker Oats to Nike and Virgin

Consistency, reliability, etc. Names replaced salesperson as interface between product and customer. De-personalization of transactions

Desirability – life-style imagery. Style as much as substance. What product/service says about (the identity of) the consumer. Buying a narrative, not just a product or a service.

Identity confirmation dependent upon consumption and display of `hip’ or `soulful’ artefacts. Simulation

Scott Bedbury, Starbucks’ vice-president of Marketing :

`consumers don’t believe that there is a huge difference between products’ which is brands must `establish emotional ties’ with their customers. Starbucks’ customers come to the stores `for the romance of the coffee experience, the feeling of warmth and community..’ cited in Naomi Klein, No Logo, p20

Media of Power and Inequality

(Re)construction of (gendered) identities through branding

`new’ man; `new’ woman, etc

Playing upon Insecurities and Offering Solutions

Anonymity/inferiority of unbranded goods

brand as filling `lack’; distancing from or fixing the boundary of `the other’

Adding value through the (gendered) labour of consumption

Construction of effective/productive consumer

Resistance to Perceived Manipulation

Grunge, `Culture Jamming’ – Nike personalisation example

Control of resistance through irony – `cool alternation’