Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Deception in Advertising

This little clip makes a potent statement about the capabilities and ethics of modern advertisement. Take note of the final moments of digital plastic surgery. Remember this, the next time you see a Reuters war clip or the importance we place on the image component of political leadership.

Democratic Faces That Could Launch Thousands of VotesWith a Parade of Attractive Candidates, the Party May Benefit From the Politics of Beauty
By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 14, 2006; A01


Image worship plays a role far too dangerous and important these days, in political discourse. It can lead to disaster. Do not always believe what you see.



I have a dream. It is a dream that someday very soon, we will return to placing value on the content of a person's character, and not the color of their foundation, or the shape of their eyebrows.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

All the worshipping the "beautiful people" makes me want to vomit. I guess celebrity worship is an extension of that. And we wonder why the country is so screwed up. When people hear Tim McGraw say we need more populist democrats in, get this, Louisiana, and people take that crap seriously, it must be a statement on the lack of evolution in the human race. Probably because we do too much to protect stupid people.

The Conservative UAW Guy said...

Quite a transformation.
Human nature is not always geared towards the best results.

Is this an argument against evolution, perhaps...?

Insolublog said...

fm – Mass. is nauseatingly rife with image worship. It transcends appearance. It is a beautiful people mindset. These people are genuine thought police. They enforce a soft bigotry of censorship through their control of the schools, the media and the government. Mass is not much better than LA. The party of fashionable dissent has become the party of vigorous image conformity and intolerance. Thankfully, this cannot last.

CUG – Evolution is by definition a process of opportunism, operating on the naturally advantageous traits of individuals. Will the future of cosmetic genetics, which is a very real possibility, be one of evolution? It is an interesting question. The traits that attract us to the ideal woman in the video, were themselves products of evolution and history. So, would our attempts to deliberately engineer those traits, into our future progeny be evolutionary, or something else? One thing is certain. If we become capable of this, the physical and biological destiny of man will become closely coupled to our own artistic desires.

Natural probabilities and survival priorities will become secondary forces.

This segues into my answer to a4g. One thing that disturbs me, in our modern age, is the technical skill of complete fiction and fabrication. This is the element that stands out in the video. Sleight of hand has always been with us. However, most of the captivating historyical sirens of the fair sex have been products of natural birth.

Much of the fiction being propagated by the beauty industry has had measurably negative consequences. How many models suffer anorexia, Bulemia or any number of psychological anxieties related to self imposed obsessions to satisfy an image that, as you can see here, is a complete fiction. So few women have every single one of those visual traits.

As to whether it is better now? I think it is. The new internet medium exposes the sleight of hand and the propaganda tools. Hell. There are so many brand new YouTube directors out there, that they are discovering all those propaganda techniques by self study. What all the lefties in that crowd fail to see is: Once everyone knows what the card trick is, they can spot it a mile away.

It is still a tough road. Every president since Nixon, has had a decent crop of hair. Where are the Winstons, or the Eisenhower's? We are still a television nation, with strong, image driven emotion.

Look at the contrast to conservative talk radio. The radio wins the conservative fight, hands down, because the medium forces the focus of its emotion and passion on raw, faceless, hairless verbal discourse of issues. We are winning that fight, which is a testimonial to our core position. Look at the reciprocal print media. The left wing press are trying to stay in the image manipulation game, without the strength of truth in the issues.

Anonymous said...

Wasn't California created out of cosmetic genetics? I think they have a border guard just to keep the 'ugly' people out of Beverly Hills.

Insolublog said...

SeanS - You could be right. The gene for self-preservation seems to have been neglected.

Buckaroo Banzai said...

Damn, I actually had a chance with the first girl . . .

Insolublog said...

Wyatt - It's better than a vapordate is it not?