Study Task 1 - Century of The Self

Top 10 most important points raised in Adam Curtis’s documentary ‘Century of the Self’ ;

- The Corporations and Government uses Freud’s theory to control mass crowd. 

- Edward Bernay’s. First person to take Freud’s ideas and manipulate the masses. Showing American corporations that they could link American goods to human desires and sales. 

- At the end of the 19th Century, America was industrialized. Bernay’s turned to his uncles psychoanalysis theories. He wanted to make money by manipulating the unconscious. He played on the humans irrational emotions. 

- Governments starting to use this to make it more serious and political. The power of controlling people’s instincts is ceased upon by the government.

- The American industry was afraid of over production. Will people have enough goods to just stop buying?

- Creating a false need for desirable objects to generate profit from the masses. The crisis of overproduction, producing too many goods. So making people believe they need these products that they have spare from production to keep the profit going.

- The American government created a system about tapping into peoples desires and tricked into buying these things to make a better life when actually it didn’t. The system creates wealth for the powers but not for the public.

- Democracy through consumerism. We believe that we are free because we can purchase different things such as a car, porn, clothing but that is a trick that has been laid down by PR. It’s like a drug that keeps us docile even though our lives are actually pretty shit. We are creating wealth for those in power but think that our needs are getting what we want which makes us temporarily happy.

- Bernays created many techniques of mass production which we live with today. Such as linking products with famous film stars and also product placement. He dressed stars in clothes and jewellery linked to his companies so that the masses would have a desire to  be like their idols. 

Relate these points to a critical analysis of one image from the mass media which, in particular, focuses on the nature of consumerism, desire and the unconscious ; 

I chose to look at this Dolce & Gabbana perfume advertisment from the last few years to show how all these points raised in 'The Century of the Self' can be applied to a very modern day context. 

The main point linking this to the documentry is techniques orginally used by Bernays to manipulate the masses based on Freud's theories. In this case, the use of a celebrity makes the masses have a strong desire to be like their idol. This is something that Bernays did, linking celebrities to all of his companies for this exact reason.

Another point is that the advert and product itself makes us believe that we are free because we can purchase it if we want to, but again as mentioned in the documentry, this is a trick that has been laid down by PR. It’s like a drug that keeps us docile even though our lives are actually pretty bad. We are creating wealth for those in power but think that our needs are getting what we want which makes us temporarily happy.

The ad is also very sexual and linking the perfume to sexual activity. This again relates to our desires and animalistic sexual drive which is uncontrollable according to Freud's dream experiments.  It will make both men want to buy it for their partner and women want to buy it to satisfy their desire for sex, even thought hat isn't the case, it's jut perfume.