Have You Ever Stepped On a LEGO? Now Imagine Sitting On One...

       Fergie in a dress made of Legos at the 2011 Kids' Choice Awards.

            

This dress and the use of Legos in its creation has been on my mind ever since I watched the 2011 Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards. In class we discussed while studying Barthes' Toy essay the difference in toys and some fo their uses in present day and in the past. One of the modern toys which we discussed was the Lego. According to the essay, toys are created as socialization tools, to create consumers out of us. Is this true? At times I believe that it is, though not in every circumstance. I love to cook and would have loved as a child to own an Easy Back Oven. I am now a consumer of cookware, cookbooks, and cooking blogs - I can't get enough of them! Would this have been the same affect had I actually owned an Easy Bake Oven as a child? I could not say, but I don't think it would have hurt.

Growing up on a farm, my brothers and I were heavily involved in farm machinery and agriculture. As toys for my brothers, they were given miniature models of the tractors to play with. We would spend hours creating our own farms in the carpets with plastic fences and animals, as well as with the toy tractors. The community which we were raised is a very rural community and heavily influenced by farming. It's what our father does, it's what his father does, and his father did, so on and so forth. Barthes discusses this idea stating that, "All the toys one commonly sees are essentially a microcosm of the adult world... the fact that toys literally prefigure the world of adult functions obviously cannot but prepare the child to accept them all... the child can only identify himself as owner, as user, never as creator..." That's kind of a scary concept...

Now, getting back to the Legos. In the essay, the toy which Barthes is discussing is wooden building blocks, which offer more opportunity for creativity than plastic toys and offer a more natural feeling and touch of humanity. "Wood makes essential objects, objects for all time... plastic toys are chemical in substance and colour, their very material introduces one to a coenaesthesis of use, not pleasure. These toys die in fact very quickly, and once dead, they have no posthumous life for a child." I find this very ironic to the fact that plastic legos was the choice for Fergies dress, (however much a part of the Speactacle [see Slimed post for further explanation]). While attempting to be iconic and memorable, she will soon be forgotten, not an essential quality or part of society. 

"The bourgeois status of toys can be recognized not only in their forms, which are all functional, but also in their substances. Current toys are made of a graceless material, the product of chemistry, not of nature."

You've Been Slimed...

Jack Black 2011 KAC

Every year Nickelodeon puts on a large, spectacular show called the Kids Choice Awards (KCA). It honors the year's biggest television, movie, and music acts, as voted by Nickelodeon viewers. Winners receive a hollow blimp figurine for their award, which is the logo for the network; it also functions as a kaleidoscope. Another tradition and spectacle of Nickelodeon is the green slime. That is another large part of the show's production, often sliming the celebrities at different intervals throughout the show.

When the 2011 KCA aired, we were studying Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle. Also, it was when many film, music, and entertainment awards shows were occurring as well. From Debord's aphorism #60, "The celebrity, the spectacular representation of a living human being, embodies this banality by embodying the image of a possible role... Celebrities exist to act out various styles of living and viewing society - unfettered, free to express themselves globally.

Katy Perry - 2011 KCA

#62 "...Wherever there is abundant consumption, a major spectacular opposition between youth and adults comes to the fore among the false roles - false because the adult, master of his life, does not exist and because youth, the transformation of what exists, is in no way the property of those who are now young, but of the economic system, of the dynamism of capitalism. Things rule and are young; things confront and replace one another." 

Host Jack Black & Fergie

This observation rules in favor of the "things", the commodity. It also follows the concept that things are perishable and ready to change at any moment. The concept of "so last season" and need for "the next best thing" drive this spectacle, especially the celebrities, to find and exude new concepts and have those feelings of wanting to be the biggest spectacle, the most remembered. The reason that these people are even considered celebrities is because of our own consumption as a society. We allow these celebrities to dictate many of the choices that we have in the things which we are consuming. 

The SPECTACLE of this particular awards show is shown in costumes, acts, performances, the award it self, and even from the host and the slime. This display is driven by Debord's concept of pseudo-cyclical time, that is a time transformed by the industry. #151 "A product which already exists in a form which makes it suitable for consumption can nevertheless in its turn become a raw material for another product." This industry transformations that the celebrities are competing with create their lively hoods. 

The Things that "Mad Men" Can Teach You...

Over this course, I have started watching the television series "Mad Men". It is a show about advertising agents in New York City during the ever changing social and civil rights movements in gender and race of the 1960s (amazing historical accuracy). On the DVD set for the series, as well as seen around online, is an advertisement for Clorox with special emphasis on Mad Men and the type of men who they were. Portrayed in the show, they were Men's men, they were wealthy, philandering, and had a family in the suburbs, with no consequences for their actions, as shown here by Clorox - everything can be "taken care of".

The tag line used on this ad is, "Getting ad guys out of hot water for generations"

So how does this connect to this course? My first thoughts went to Roland Barthes and his essay titled "Soap-powders and Detergents". One, for the obvious reason that it is an ad for Clorox, a very powerful and harsh cleaning detergent. This ad is obviously stating that bleach is the way to get your whites, white. Second, it plays very heavily on the concept of what exactly they are cleaning, or hiding. The lipstick on the collar implies that Ad men are cheating on their wives, and what better way to hide that than to destroy the evidence with Clorox bleach.

The essay discusses the psychology and psycho-analysis of the detergents. "The product 'kills' the dirt... their function is keeping public order not making war." I believe this applies to relationships in context of the advertisement. The bleach is "killing" the evidence of the "dirt" - the indiscretion. The function of keeping peace, not war, is hiding the evidence from the wife. Another area that the ad plays into is that the detergent "bases its prestige on the evidence of a result; it calls into play vanity, a social concern with appearances..." Keeping up appearances is very important within our society, especially among married couples, not wanting others thinking that your relationship is failing or that you can't keep your man in line.

(Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Hill and Wang, 1972. Print.)