Exploiting of American Dream fantasy in Advertising. My paper for English 101H class of prof. F.Libman.

In discussing trends in American advertising, it is worth while to observe two basic perceptions of happiness. These two basic perceptions of happiness can be called the American Dream fantasy. Individuals' most endearing dreams balance between democratic closeness to the life of other people and an elitist desire to be better than others, to be the best. These two faces of American Dream have one basic common point that always counts everything up in the end – money. So the Dream itself is to have money to buy everything that your neighbor can afford, and at the same time to buy things that nobody from your social class could ever afford. These fantasies shape the face of the nation, because advertising, based on them has a very strong impact on people, especially on children. Advertisers play on our fantasies; commercials and ads are saturated with them. We can easily trace different interpretations of American Dream factor in today's ad industry.

Analyzing advertisements in American magazines, one can clearly tell American Dream ads from the minority of other ads. Those ads are usually too optimistic if the ad appeals to the sense of fraternity and equality with other people. On the other hand those ads become eerie and mystical, usually black and white to stress the wholesome uniqueness of the piece if the ad is about a desire to join the elite group of people. Of course, there are some ads that do not bear these two faces of American Dream; they are brave enough to neglect in this or that way the laws of money. But probably because of this they seem to be somehow doomed by other typically American ads. I am talking about some funny and naпve ads for Altoids and United Colors of Benetton in this case. But let me not discuss qualities of these ads because they have little to do with American Dream. I mentioned them to prove that things in society and consequently in advertising have a slight chance to become less pragmatic and Dream oriented (pragmatic and Dream oriented is not an oxymoron in this case unfortunately) in time.

The first ad I would like to talk about is a four-page black and white story about falling in love with Ralph Lauren's "Romance" fragrance for men. It seems to be an ad of a good and decent taste, not overloaded with unnecessary details and colors. It is supposed to be simple and concise. What makes this ad one of a kind is a spirit of privacy; it comes to the viewer naturally and tries not to sound extremely false. A man and a woman on this ad seem to be unaware of the rest of the world; they are deep in their feelings and thoughts. In the inside page two people are swinging on swing made from a supposedly old (but with clear and new protector lines anyway) tire of a truck. The action is taking place on some ranch with a wide wooden fence at a distance and a forest beside it. The day seems to be cloudy; probably it is noon in the middle of summer. The young couple is wearing really unexpected clothes – black suit, tie and spectacular shoes on a man and long dark open-neck dress on a lady. Those strangely dressed people are in a contradiction with the surroundings, so a viewer is supposed to have a feeling that they just escaped from some ball-room in order to get away from the crowd, plunge into their feelings and swing at the old ranch swing. Those people seem to aim an internal question at a viewer: "Do you dare? Can you escape from everything (only for couple of hours though, because some business appointments are still waiting for you) and be free?!" These people do not take off their clothes; a man can at least take off his tie. These people want to make an impression that they fully belong to the upper class and at the same time that they are even higher then the upper class, because they dare to follow their minute impulse and have some romance for some (limited) time. Their poses are probably meant to be artificial, because the ad tries to show, that this splurge of feelings is not a life-long story, but a minute affair, something unnatural and unreal, which could become possible if a man uses Lauren's "Romance" for men. So the slogan for this ad would be "prosperity and impulse" and it illustrates the elitist side of American Dream.

The other ad is a campaign for Tommy Hilfinger jeans. It is a very merry ad, with lots of teenagers grinning, laughing and probably singing something. This particular ad involves especially strong irony on my point of view. Young people look so stupidly happy on it, and I can only guess what effort of photographer or editor could make people look so stupid and regular. These teenagers are so into wearing Tommy's jeans and smiling, that for a moment it seems strange and unbelievable, that any problem can ever exist in this happy world. Of course, there is nothing wrong with being happy, but I can hardly imagine mass-happiness because of wearing Tommy jeans unless you are on dope. The ad looks as a caricature, and I am curious what evil designers wanted their viewers to be disgusted by young generation. A lot of ads are like this – people are just having good time, their faces are completely mindless with same expression of physical comfort and same gloomy smile on them. Such ads are popular. They are popular because they are playing upon the first part of American Dream – to be as much similar to the other average people as possible, to smile and not to think too much. "No problem!" is a slogan of such ads. It is unimaginable and even sick to try to substitute on this type of ad one smiling face to a sad one or just thinking one. This person would become implicit, this would break the rules in a really awful way and would not be popular. So, wear Tommy's jeans and never ever think about something, just smile!

The other ad, that goes exactly after this merry one seems to be totally opposed to Tommy's ad. Editors are really witty here – it is another side of the coin and it starts on the other side of the page about Tommy's boys and girls. The ad is the same Dream but only about elitism in American life. This ad follows the main rule of advertising – contrast. If somebody like me were disturbed by too happy character on the first ad, this person should love this second one! You just turn the page with mindlessly wide grinning dancing teen-agers and what do you see?: a lonely girl is sitting on the hood of the car, no smile on her face; she looks weird and wicked; night lights around her are scary and annoying, and she is definitely a Lone Wolf in this life. People who are tired of smiley faces will feel instant unity with this girl, and look what she is wearing – DKNY jeans, so be it, I buy it! The picture is blurred and colors are dimmed, but you can distinctly see features of elitist fantasy: fancy car, some expensive jewelry and this spirit of bringing yourself in a contrast to other people, not smiling together with them and not following their rules.

Fantasies occupy a big part in our minds. They do not appear in us by themselves though, they are mirrors of our childhood, of our parents' behavior, of our friends' strong points, and characters from our favorite books. They are supposed to be different for everybody, because we are so much different from each other. But somehow it became possible to substitute the entire nation's dreams for the only one, American Dream, and manipulate this intruded dream as wildly as possible. It is not natural; actually it is a perversion. I hope this will change in time, because I am idealist.



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