The Spectacle
- Outlined in book by Debord in France in 1960s.
- That book broke France: riots, king went to hide, etc.
- Patagonia advertises their products in relation to young, attractive, outdoorsy people. By wearing Patagonia, you are using their shorthand to present an image of yourself through the world’s image of Patagonia (which they also understand because we live in the same last-stage capitalistic world).
- “Everything that was directly lived has now become mere representation.”
- We don’t interact as human beings, we interact as images that are decoded and recoded.
- “The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images.”
- We use this shorthand to pre-judge people.
- Corporations are writing the language that we use between ourselves.
Disney
- Disney is a spectacle machine, and they’re really good at projecting a brand image.
- In Disney, solutions to problems are utopian solutions — they solve every problem, not just that specific problem.
- Problem in Disney stories:
- Powerful people have problem.
- Powerful people get help from less powerful people.
- Powerful people get powerful again, and reward less powerful people.
- This is kinda the way that actual capitalism works too.
- “Happily ever after” applies to one person or a few, not to other people.
- Disney feels a feeling of being able to decode the spectacle and a feeling of coherence.
- The thing we decode though isn’t great, even though we’re satisfied that we’ve decoded it.
- Disney Disneyfies: Disney uses the spectacle to transform the status quo into a utopian “happily ever after.”
- We follow the images, not the truth. We’re so thrilled to get the reference.
- We’re able to read characters.
- The actual story underneath is secondary.
- Disney is rebooting everything as a bit grittier, a bit darker, a bit more “real.”
- Disney now pretends that they recognize the problems with their old properties and portrayals, and pretends to be “in on the joke.” “But now it’s more real, buy buy buy.”