Sut Jhally stated in her article “Advertising at The Edge of the Apocalypse” that 20th century advertising is the most powerful and sustained system of propaganda in human history and its cumulative cultural effects, unless quickly checked, will be responsible for destroying the world as we know it. As it achieves this will be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of non-western peoples and will prevent the peoples of the world from achieving true happiness. As I was reading her article, some of her ideas matched my ideas such as that there is no such thing as ‘Society’ including the government. She said that the society is an illusion made by individuals. Human beings tend to maintain or even want more out of greed but do not tend to give part of their owns to others. Therefore, people use stereotypes maintain and justify their acts of being evil or greedy.
As a way of grabbing attentions and make profits, companies simply use the media or visual and audible advertisements which would end up stereotyping people. As an example, I was watching MTV programs one day after the lessons on stereotypes and I was surprised how much the MTV was stereotyping people by encouraging them to look rich and worldly. One of the MTV programs I enjoyed watching when I was a teenager was “Sweet Sixteen” which would encourage teenagers who would soon turn sixteen to have the most extravagant parties to be memorized and cherished for life. Another TV show was about women who get to live the most luxurious lives at young ages because of their parents support. They go crazy over luxuries and brands that are famous and would help them show off their richness. Most of the people in the show were whites and I realized that the MTV was aiming at individuals’ tendency to chase the illusion of living a rich life equal happy life. By watching shows, numerous numbers of stereotypes perpetuated unconsciously that whites are usually superior economically and looking rich and having a luxurious life would bring me happiness and superiority. By watching medias and advertisements, every individual at young age would develop stereotypes and form the society. As a result, people become puppets of the illusion and they are completely blinded with stereotypes to see the reality. The advertisement of food to trigger your appetite, in reality, actually makes one want the food in order to make profit from one. However, no one really sees the reality is that there are so many people out there are femine and starve everyday. The media as a way of advertisement should deliver and give the fixed ideas of those poor people out to be thought when seen instead of triggering appetite in order to change the society little by little to be without huge gaps among people and not led by illusions.
I also think that stereotypes come true, especially by reading the article on prison. If too many people are stereotyped on colored people, they make colored people end up feeling and acknowleging inferior(ity) than them and they most likely commit crimes and become prisoners. There should be resistance on these stereotypes instead of acceptance by making efforts to give good impressions on the ones that are stereotyped, and streotyped should think differently. In reality, however, colored people get discriminated at work place and usually become poorer and to become criminals to fulfill their desires. Hence, the society or ones that make up the capitalism misuse this to prosper their business and country. That way, the society with many criminals and the ones that prosper through them gets maintained and goes on and on. Therefore, the stereotypes should be removed and thought differently by individuals to change the world with everyone's efforts.
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