Current Reading…

“The branded multinationals may talk diversity, but the visible result of their actions is an army of teen clones marching – in “uniform”, as the marketers say – into a global mall. Despite the embrace of polyethnic imagery, market-driven globalization doesn’t want diversity; quite the opposite. Its enemies are national habits, local brands and distinctive regional tastes. Fewer interests control ever more of the landscape.” – “No Logo”, Naomi Klein, 2000

The above is a quote from the book I’m currently reading. The book is broken down into two halves. The first half is about the growth and expansion of the idea of “brand” as a product as opposed to an actual object being the product. This is especially true of companies like Nike, Gap, Old Navy, Adidas, and Starbucks. The first half of the book also goes into detail about the shrinking of public funding of the arts and education and the resulting branding of schools, art expositions, music festivals, and even people. Corporations are funding medical and other research at major universities and building into their funding contracts the right to suppress the results of the research if it reflects negatively on their company. A good example has been summarized online at The Betty Dong Affair.

The second half of the book is about the growing backlash in the form of people and organizations taking steps to try to stem the tide. Places like AdBusters and large organizations that include major factions within the Green Party are taking steps to fight the unchecked expansion of corporation into formerly “public space”.

The section I just finished was very eye-opening for me and left me a bit shaken. Back in the 1980′s, in college, I was very active in groups pushing for better representation in both my college and the media. I marched for more female role models in the media, for more gay and lesbian role models on TV, more (and better) representation of minorities in movies, for more female professors, and for history text books that had a broader view and actually talked about the roles women and Native Americans and other minorities in the history of the world. By the time the early 1990′s rolled around, things appeared to have changed for the better. Gays in the military was part of the platform for a major political party’s presidential candidate. Women and blacks were better represented then ever before in pop media.

After reading this book, what jumps out at me is that me and my friends were not fighting the right fight. While we pushed for representation we were not paying too much attention to what the corporations that gave us the multicultural rainbow skittles colored images we asked for were doing in the background. While TV Networks addressed our grievances, me and most of the rest of the non-ironic politically correct generation, were so happy to see our hard work pay off that we never thought to look behind the curtain. I know I’m not alone in not fully paying attention as fewer and fewer companies were controlling more and more of the media. As Naomi Klein says, “We were too busy analyzing the pictures being projected on wall to notice that the wall itself had been sold.”

Much to think about for me. Just felt I’d think better after sharing.