The Media is the Mirror, Pt. 3

The Signifier and the Thing Signified

The spectacle also represents choices, choices already made by the collective worldview of our age and materialized by our engines of production.  The resulting collection of news, propaganda, entertainment and advertising presents these choices, along with their justification, as a whole.  

Crucial to this equation is the justification of these choices.  Thus an image will transform over time to better represent the visual characteristics of the pre-selected choices of any particular moment.  The spectacle becomes the embodiment of a historical moment.  I offer up Barbie as an example.  When Barbie first appeared on the spectacle she was introduced as a perfect plastic embodiment of all that is an adult female, for consumption by young girls seeking instruction on how to become the perfect embodiment of an adult female.  In 1959, and for several years after, when this anatomically disproportionate, always smiling symbol first captivated the hearts of little girls, she was a sophisticated 27 year-old fashion model, living in a penthouse in Manhattan.  Barbie was intelligent and independent, with a wardrobe based on designs by the leading fashion houses of Europe: Dior, Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent.  Barbie wore lipstick and opera gloves.  She had dramatic eye make-up and earrings and drove a convertible.  Today, Barbie has been transformed into a teenager, perpetually 16 years old and wearing jean shorts and sneakers, pushing a baby stroller.  She drives a Volkswagen bug with daisies on it.  

Similar transformations have occurred and are occurring constantly as each image is brought in line with the thinking of any given moment, adjusted to suit the consumers of the images and their tastes. 

In this manner, the spectacle has chronicled the transformation of the goals of a global society, from the qualitative, to the quantitative, to a pure illusion based on the appearance of the qualitative and quantitative.  

For example, in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, the United States automotive industry was focused on manufacturing the best cars in the world.  In the 1970’s and 1980’s that focus shifted from the qualitative to the quantitative and the US became interested only in manufacturing the most cars in the world.  Today automobiles with US brands on them, like Chevrolet and Chrysler, only aspire to the appearance of being manufactured in the United States, when, in fact, they are made in Korea or Japan, and Japanese or German brands like Toyota, Honda, BMW and Volkswagen are manufactured in the United States.  

Similarly, a Prada or Chanel handbag in 1960 looked much like any other handbag, except for qualitative differences.  A Chanel clutch would be similar to a thousand other clutch purses, except that it was made of the finest calf skin, was hand made, with superior stitching and was, ultimately, a far superior handbag to the more pedestrian version being sold in department stores.  During the 1980’s it became important to sell more Chanel (or Prada or Luis Vitton) handbags and so they began appearing in department stores, were mass produced, as opposed to hand made, and quality was sacrificed to quantity.  Today, it is more important for the handbag to have the appearance of a Chanel or Luis Vitton handbag and so they must be covered in logos identifying them for all to see as Chanel, Luis Vitton, etc. – even if they are counterfeit.  The need for consumption of the image of the article has become more important than the actual article and many people are just as proud to own an inexpensive copy of a Luis Vitton bag, than the genuine article.  Moreover, the quality of construction is often identical as the fashion houses, seeking ever less expensive means of production, have shipped their manufacturing to the very places that produce the cheap copies.  Now the actual article is identical to the copy.  

The German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach wrote in the preface to the second edition of The Essence of Christianity that the “present age, … prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, appearance to essence.”  He wrote this in 1848.