James Twitchell
interviewed by Mike Agger on July 11, 1996
Adcult vs. Highcult:
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"I don't want to make the Pillsbury Doughboy into the crucified Christ, but I do want to say that there are some interesting and provocative similarities."
Tripod: In "Adcult USA," you discuss the idea of having classes in elementary school that would teach simple persuasive techniques. Presumably, these classes would help us "fight back" against the advertising culture that surrounds us. Why is it important to know the inner workings of advertising culture?
James Twitchell: Advertising is not something that we have to struggle against. It is so intriguing, it uses so many devices, and it appeals to us in so many aspects that I would like to see us appreciate it. We need to learn how advertising fits into a continuum of institutions that, with our unacknowledged complicity, have surrounded human cultures to give the objects of these cultures a value and purpose.
Tripod: That sounds very close to art appreciation.
JT: That's true, it is. Advertising is seen as bad, as causing unstoppable twisters of desire. We wouldn't say these awful things about religion, and yet religion does very much the same kind of thing that advertising does. It draws attention to certain objects, certain aspirations, certain meanings. These objects and meanings become second nature. Religion does not attempt to twist our perceptions, but rather it attempts to resolve certain dilemmas of a culture. Advertising does very much the same thing.
Tripod: Where do we receive the message that advertising is inherently bad for us?
JT: From advertising itself. When you get older, advertising appears smarmy, manipulative, crude, brutal and anxiety provoking. When you are younger and much more susceptible to advertising, it becomes exciting, wonderful, alluring and full of promise. This is not much different than religion. For those who need it, want it and learn from it, religion is the truth of God. For those who either have another religion or have passed by this area of maturation, religion is sort of curiously interesting and sometimes mildly offensive, very much in the same way advertising is.
Tripod: I agree that religion, like advertising, is a meaning-making system that shapes the distinctive world views of individual people, but I find it hard to equate them. Religion offers the end result of trying to becoming a better person while advertising is ultimately about buying stuff.
JT: Why don't you say the same thing about religion? It is because religion has done such a wonderful job of advertising that when we think about it, we think about it in terms of the improvement of the spiritual self. We don't think of it as an institution that essentially supports itself by exchanging relief, salvation, and purpose in return for money, penance, and attendance in church.
JT: It is not totally inappropriate to look at church decorations which we now call art as being really quite close to what occurs when Philip Morris sells cigarettes. Philip Morris sponsors a television show or buys a space on the Internet, in exchange for your attention. They give you something that will make you want to stay there long enough so they can make the sale. Church art offered the same sort of exchange, a chance to look at beautiful images in return for coming to church. Renaissance church art is very close to what we currently deride as vulgar and smarmy.
Tripod: These iconic images are in fact advertisements for a certain version of the afterlife?
JT: I don't want to make the Pillsbury Doughboy into the crucified Christ, but I do want to say that there are some interesting and provocative similarities.
Tripod: I follow you, but religion seems to actually make people feel good about their lives, while consumption, although satisfying, is for most people ultimately dissatisfying. We long for "something more."
JT: Some of us are trained to think there is "something more," but for a lot of people the act of consumption in and of itself is a pleasurable experience.
JT: I don't see religion and advertising as mutually exclusive institutions. I see them as quite complementary. They appeal to us simultaneously but at different times in our lives, one is more intense than the other. Advertising is a much more intense experience for you now than it is for me, because I have already made my brand choices. I am not really interested in receiving the information provided by advertising. Maybe now I am more ripe for the religious experience than for the consumptive one.
Advertising culture is a culture that is directed towards those people who are anxious about consumption. Mostly young people who don't know what brands to choose, what styles to wear, that haven't quite found their niche. Religion does something very close to this. It resolves problems for those people who are concerned about purpose, meaning, and especially anxiety about death. These are things which young people do not feel as intensely as older people do.
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