Advertisements: a literary estimate

----Gargi

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. (Palgrave 424)

Yeats seems to have expressed very aptly the condition of the contemporary world in ‘The Second Coming’, with multiple human desires for some unknown bliss, hovering around the Utopian state of existence promised by the bulk of advertisements. As the world has moved on through the labyrinthine route of various ‘ism’s, each generating ‘enlightenment’ for the human species in its own right, this era of advertisements seems to be giving rise to a different sort of ‘enlightenment’ – by creating an unquenchable thirst for a material sense of existence, enriched by the craze to possess and parade.


To say that the advertisements, all under a universal heading, have simply misdirected people would be quite unfair, since some of them like those on epidemics, public health and hygiene and literacy mission, have indeed generated awareness about certain crucial issues related to the masses. As for example, Buladi needs no introduction and along with her the fact that AIDS need not be feared as contagious and can be prevented. Yet, a study of the majority of commercial ads tossed at the people in the third-world countries, more specifically India, would reveal the profitably political use of language, both verbal and non-verbal – mainly utopian and sexist in nature – flourishing parasitically upon the beliefs blindly registered in the name of ‘tradition’ and ‘culture’; those which need to be reviewed and rethought, and indeed are being reanalyzed in the age of intellectual globalization, but at the ground levels, on the contrary, are being reinforced more strongly than ever, for the purpose of bringing in maximum returns.


Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table… (Eliot 13)

Eliot scarcely knew while penning these lines of ‘The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock’, that they would form such a perfect invitation sometime down in the twenty first century to make a survey of the advertisements – those that haunt the mind and lure the human beings, the magic of ‘Temptation’ recreated for both the sexes alike, this time. To continue in the words of the poet,

Oh, do not ask, ‘What is it?’

Let us go and make our visit. (13)


The first aspect of the language of contemporary advertisements is the utopian vision they generate in the minds of the consumers. Each ad aims at creating the illusion that just the purchase of that particular commodity would make life complete – in every sense of the term. The problem lies not in blowing one’s own trumpet, since that is the prerequisite for an ad to become so, but rather in the exploitation of human emotions and capabilities, especially the tendency to dream, which is used by the ads today as the principle instrument to achieve their purpose, for Romanticism was not just a literary movement restricted to a particular phase of history, it forms till date the basic pattern of human lives.


The utopian nature of the advertisements today is perhaps best exemplified by the automobile ads. As the Santro or Indica or Chevrolet speeds down the splendid streets, smooth and most importantly, unbroken, surrounded by greenery, under the blue sky, every innocent aspiring heart is filled with the desire to own one someday; the dream-colored impact of the visual recreating the magic of Shelley’s ‘To A Skylark’:

All the earth and air

With thy voice is loud,

As, when the night is bare,

From one lonely cloud

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. (Palgrave 244)



The ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ hardly allows the doubt to creep in that it’s no longer ‘one lonely cloud’ but rather, a smog, and the ‘voice’ is in fact, the noise around, both encapsulated within a term better known as ‘pollution’. Incidentally, the advertisement of the latest little one toddling into the big field, better known as Nano, declares its entry as the one ‘to end all speculation, debate and talk’ – a line, though probably unintentionally, nevertheless quite explicitly, silencing the dialogic tradition and denying heterodoxy. One would, however, be reminded of Amartya Sen as he writes in The Argumentative Indian:

A defeated argument that refuses to be obliterated can remain very alive. (Sen 06)

Amidst the joyous celebration of the birth of the little one, there’s always an apprehension about the future, in this case in the minds of the target audience, who rarely are able to forget, after all’s done and said, the exclusively street-made jams and jellies which earn frowns and dissatisfaction at the work-place, even now, when the roads are free of the millions of new toddlers. But nevertheless, initially, the mesmerizing impact of the rose-colored dream is absolute.


The advertisements of the motorbikes would reveal more clearly the second aspect of the language of contemporary ads, i.e., sexism. As the gallant young man in his macho leather jacket rides the brand, say for instance, Pulsar, the beautiful ladies of the neighborhood lose their hearts and long for a chivalrous lift to come their way. The promised prize is not just a dream-ride, but a dream companion, as well. In fact, the man rides on with his beloved clinging onto him like a nail to a magnet, as if living the lines of Robert Browning’s ‘The Last Ride Together’:

What need to strive with a life awry?

Had I said that, had I done this,

So might I gain, so might I miss.

Might she have loved me? just as well

She might have hated, who can tell!

Where had I been now if the worst befell?

And here we are riding, she and I. (Loucks 152)


It would be worthwhile, indeed, to examine the Indian advertisements through the looking glass of gender, for if the advertisements have revolutionized the global economic scenario, then the women modeling for the various products, ranging from washing powder to shaving cream, diaper to automobile, have served as the perfect depiction of gateways to pleasure, thereby enhancing demand and increasing sale. Though it might be argued that ads opened up new employment opportunities for women, which is very true, nevertheless they also led to the complete commodification of the second sex, to the extent that a hoarding advertising sanitary ware at the bypass, near Salt Lake Stadium, showed a woman with bare shoulders wearing a string around her neck with a basin-shaped locket dangling from it, till a few days back. Horrendous exceptions apart, even the normal traditional representation of women as daughters, mothers and wives in these ads tend to strengthen the stereotypes. Though there is a serious subversion in such ads, in treating the things considered as holy and auspicious essentials defining the woman in the society, such as sindoor, mangalsutra and the like, as sheer make-up ingredients, yet this subversion is detectable only to the people offering a serious afterthought to the interpretation of these mesmerizing moments – a number comprising, perhaps, the smallest minority in the contemporary world.


The ads of cosmetics, soaps and shampoos invariably remind one of Byron’s famous proclamation:

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes. (Palgrave 177)

There can perhaps, be no better example to illustrate this than the famous brand ‘fair and lovely’, which assures a girl success in every field hitherto out of reach, be it marriage, job or recognition in the ‘feminine’ fields of glamour, by virtue of fair skin. The fact that ‘fair’ is a visual quality and ‘lovely’, a natural attribute, is completely obliterated, as if ushering in the colonial idea of ‘memsahib’, implying that fair is lovely. Though half the world turns vegetarian, flesh will continue to make a difference. The devastating dream of Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye’ is reinforced with added colors and hues; while Melville’s memorable warning is altogether forgotten:

…there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which

strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood.

(Melville 160)

and further:

Bethink thee of the albatross: whence come those clouds of spiritual wonderment

and pale dread in which that white phantom sails in all imaginations? Not

Coleridge first threw that spell; but God’s great, unflattering laureate,

Nature. (160)


However, leaving the so-called ‘women’s utilities’ apart, the smoothness of a Gillette shave also requires a most economically dressed woman stroking the cheek of the smart dude, as testimony. Even the deodorants for men, logically offering solution to one of the gravest problems faced by humankind, with a flesh and blood body and sweat glands, require women, fair, slim and beautiful, to sniff. It would be worthwhile in this context to remember the happening brand in today’s market, Set Wet, with its lucrative slogan: ‘very very sexy’. Employing rationale beyond the magic of the audio-visual would, however, puzzle the mind in looking for a relationship between the two, the adjective and the noun, suggesting a severe case of malapropism.


It is indeed remarkable to notice how the ads today re-emphasize the socially constructed ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ domains of work, representing them as more natural than biological sex. The baby-products, for instance, Johnson’s baby soap or cream or oil or shampoo, will always show the mother toying with the child, recreating the ever-enchanting myth of motherhood; while fathers only appear when the ad deals with something more serious, say an insurance policy or better still, marriage. A glaring example in his context is provided by the advertisement of Vicks Vaporub, which came on screen sometime back, wherein the terribly befuddled father asks his son, who is suffering from a severe cold, what his mother, who has apparently gone somewhere, would have given him had she been at home. Such ads invariably bring to the sensible mind a feeling of awe and an urgency to re-read the books of science, since asexual reproduction in human beings went completely unrecorded until this ad hinted at it. Moreover, such ads are extremely unfair in their representation of the fathers as such terribly unaware and ignorant creatures, when today a large number of men, as fathers, actually take interest in the well-being of their children, even within the domestic space, and are aware of their regular needs too, apart from education, home and marriage loans. This sort of misrepresentation tends to politicize the domestic space to a larger degree, making the divide between ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ sharper and stronger.


Incidentally, the children too are males, unless the advertisement specifically requires a female child to serve its purpose, in say for instance, the advertisement of Mediker, probably trying to suggest that Sons and Lovers never have such ignoble problems as lice. But otherwise, be it chyavanprash or health drink, toothpaste or cough syrup, the child in question, is invariably, a male child. Even when the ads seem to be gender-sensitive in the depiction of young boys and girls, advocating the abilities of girls as in case of TVS Scooty, where the girls are shown are riders, a man is always brought in to show how he’s been outsmarted by the girl riding the Scooty. The attitude adopted, immediately reminds one of Alexander Pope’s age of the ‘battle of sexes’, and the issues tend to lose their seriousness under the impact of mockery.


Interestingly, when much is being spoken on the intellectual front, about the ‘family’ as an important social unit, specially in the context of gender, since it has the most significant contribution in the acculturation of an individual, the depiction of ‘families’ in the contemporary advertisements point out how the conventional ideas related to this unit can be kept intact and reinforced as ideal, even in the twenty first century. Apart from the role-identification of ‘mother’ and ‘father’, as discussed above, the ads also try to recreate the magic of certain ‘comic’ experiences within the domestic space. ‘Comic’ remains within quotes, however, since nothing is quite ‘comic’ until it is politically constructed and recognized to be so, in as far as institutions – social, commercial or political – are concerned, at the expense of certain other things, and therefore, need to be examined for their comicality.



The recent ad of Britannia Mariegold biscuit shows a homemaker blissfully sipping her tea while questions are asked to her about how she manages to run such a heavy routine everyday with such perfection, to which she replies: ‘Why! I’m given this fifteen-minutes holiday, each day’, and just as she completes the statement, her mother-in-law’s voice calls her off-screen, to which she replies promptly, exclaims and rushes leaving her tea behind. This is just one instance; however, there are several such ads which tend to keep intact the hilarious ‘monster-in-law’ image to bring in humor and strengthen hegemony. The codes of patriarchy are kept intact, since the poor mother-in-law, is nonetheless, a powerful patriarchal construct, either to be feared or ridiculed; the success of the formula, is tested and confirmed.


A recent exception, and a happy one at that, has been the ad of Canara Bank, which shows a mother-in-law belonging to a southern state of India, learning Punjabi willingly, in order to make her daughter-in-law belonging to Punjab, feel at home and a part of the family, on her arrival, away from her dear ones. Similarly, the ad of Havell’s cables makes one feel hopeful when the son leaves aside his book to find a bit of cable, which he twists into a holder and brings to his mother ,who’s a daily-wager and was almost burning her hands while making chapattis for him over the naked flame. Such ads, however, transform commercial realities into poetic expression through their profound understanding of human feelings, reminding one of Sidney’s declaration:

Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done;

neither with pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers, nor

whatsoever else may make the too-much-loved earth more lovely; her

world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden.(Enright 08)


But such expressions are rare. Most of the ads retain their characteristic superficiality trying to reap the most out of what the masses of a developing country with massive illiteracy have been used to, thoughtlessly, in the name of legacy. Quite ironically, having attained its climax in Marx, the term ‘revolution’ acquired a dramatic shape and form in the mould of Information Technology – which today by the virtue of ads – has become the largest force which the ‘proletariat’ (in every aspect of the term – class as well as gender) has to combat. But when the exceptions, as cited above, are placed next to the mainstream, one cannot help regretting the gross misuse of such enormous potential, since human beings are driven day in day out in their lives by the impact of these advertisements. On a concluding note, it would be significant to recall Mark Twain, who in puts the blame of the defeat of the Southerners in the American Civil War of 1864 on Sir Walter Scott, saying that:

…for it is not conceivable that this little sham castle would ever have

been built if he had not run the people mad, a couple of generations ago,

with his mediaeval romances. The South has not yet recovered from the

debilitating influence of his books. (Twain 268)

Contemporary advertisements play no less a role in making the global South what it is, giving to the people grossly misdirected dreams and vision, far away from the plane of reality which needs to be acknowledged and introspected, in order to move forward.



If Yeats began the discussion, let Christina Rossetti conclude it with her resonating lines:

Morning and evening

Maids heard the goblins cry:

‘Come buy our orchard fruits,

Come buy, come buy…’ (Ricks 460)

Perhaps, Rossetti would have been astonished to learn that the ‘Goblin Market’ can now seduce both the sexes alike, and probably, this entire phenomenon, i.e. the silver-screen with its portrayal of ‘Lemons and oranges’, ‘Melons and raspberries’ would have found a deserving expression from her pen, for she traced the link between literature and ‘market’ way back in the nineteenth century. Though her motive was largely to examine the condition of the women in nineteenth century England, and to spread the notion of sisterhood, nevertheless, the commercial concepts of ‘value’ and ‘exchange’ attained a literary status in her creation, as she suggested their role and impact on human lives. The turn of the twenty first century with ‘Come buy’ as its all-engulfing slogan, certainly adds a new edge to Rossetti’s reflection, and laments the absence of an updated sequel.








Reference

Palgrave, Francis Turner. Palgrave’s Golden Treasury. Calcutta: Oxford University Press.1992.
Eliot, T.S. Collected Poems 1909-1962. London: Faber and Faber. 1974.
Sen, Amartya. The Argumentative Indian. London: Penguin Books Ltd. 2005.
Loucks, James F. Robert Browning’s Poetry. New York: W.W.Norton & Company. 1979.
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: W.W.Norton & Company. 2002.
Enright,D.J. English Critical Texts. London: Oxford University Press. 1983.
Twain, Mark. Life on the Mississippi. USA: Penguin Group. 1988.
Ricks, Christopher. The Oxford Book of English Verse. New York: Oxford University Press. 1999.