We're doing presentations on famous photographers in my photography class and I am doing, of course, Barbara Kruger. I haven't been able to get that Beatles song out of my head since I saw a photo of hers that said "money can't buy me." I can't seem to find that one online, but I did find this one.
That's what advertisements would have us belive: money can buy us everything we ever wanted or ever will want. And this:
That last picture is scary - both images are negative reactions to the consumer society that S&C describe in this chapter. In general images serve to convince us that we need something in the image, whether it be something tangible like new shoes or something intangible like love or power. Kruger's images oppose this idea, like the BUGA UP group that S&C describe. Ads are everywhere, especially on the internet, where they can change everytime you refresh the page. Society is defined by advertisements. People are defined by what they buy - the brand of clothes they wear, the car they drive, etc. We're still living with this idea:
(Kuger says it so much better than I can.) In one of my classes last year we spent some time talking about why people like to shop. According to my class, it's all about the choices and indecision. When you are in the moment of making a choice all possibilities are open to you. That is, while you're choosing what to buy, you feel like you own everything because you could theoretically buy everything. That's why browsing is so important to shopping, like S&C write. Images convince us that we can have everything and because we want to believe this we go out and look at whatever is being advertised. Some people are stronger than others - some buy things, some don't.
To buy or not to buy. That is the question.
(Oddly enough, the class that brought up the power of indecision and choice thing was actually talking about Hamlet's inaction in the same play Kruger borrows this classic phrase from.)
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