Monday, September 16, 2013
Consumerist Morals
What does George Lipsitz mean when he suggests that working class ethnic sitcoms of the 1950s put the borrowed moral capital of the past at the service of the values of the present? Based on his essay and your viewings this Thursday, how did these sitcoms demonstrate how "wise choices enabled consumers to have both moral and material rewards"?
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The working class ethnic sitcoms of the 1950s encouraged their views to consume products first and foremost. In the post-war era, American consumers were enjoying a level of prosperity they were not used to after the crushing economic woes of the 1930s. As stated by marketing expert Ernest Dichter, the main concern of advertisers of the time was to give the public the “sanction and justification to enjoy [prosperity] and to demonstrate that the hedonistic approach to life is a moral one, not an immoral one” (77). The solution that Ditcher proposed “consisted of identifying new products and styles of consumption with traditional historically sanctioned practices and behavior” as such an approach would hold “relevance in addressing consumers who had only recently acquired the means to spend freely” (77).
ReplyDeleteThis concern with making newly financially secure families with consumerism can be seen in the sitcoms that were subsequently broadcast. Alice Kramden in The Honeymooners always comes out on the winning side of her arguments with her husband by “pointing out his inadequacies as a provider.” Mama, a sitcom focusing on the experiences of a family of Norwegian immigrants, reflects this capitalist concern. The series, Lipstiz notes, frequently included plots where the goal or solution laid in the purchase of a new product, such as in one episode which focuses on the titular character receiving a “fireless cooker” for her birthday.