Tuesday, September 16, 2014
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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ReplyDeleteWhat 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"?
ReplyDeleteThe Meaning of Memory posits several claims regarding the post-WWII configuration of the family and its underpinning consumerist ideology. Lipsitz suggests that in the wake of the 1929 market crash working class and ethnic communities were prompted by necessity to work in close knit circles, to value cooperation over individual interests. Such a mindset however was inimical to the interests of corporate America whose object it was to maintain the high production levels triggered by the war time industry. A push toward privileging private property over public works as well as the ongoing fragmentation of social units into relatively small nuclear families meant the proliferation of customers with each family demanding their own commodity in their own separate home. Lipsitz hints at the fact that there was also a commercial interest in the fragmentation of consumer bases within the home into clearly delineated gender roles; the most desirable result would be that each member of the family would crave commodities that defined their position within the home: a washing machine for the mother, instant coffee for the father, etc. At the same time, this consumer mentality had to be compatible with the values of the many who still felt a strong sense of familial and community duty. This was achieved in part by working class ethnic sitcoms that would often figure commodities as the solution to social problems most pressing to working class and ethnic communities.
The episode of the sitcom Mama we watched in class last Tuesday meets these objectives of corporate America I just enumerated. On one level it appeals to a sense of ethnic solidarity by placing the Nordic family within a Nordic neighborhood; on the other hand, the majority of the action takes place within the home. Mama also presents a fragmented family configuration in which each family member is assigned a specific role, though here much of the conflict is a result of family members not performing their duties effectively. It is worth pointing out that this conflict is not resolved by external forces such as extended family members, neighbors, or the like. The solution comes once the unity of Mama’s nuclear family is tightened. And how is the resolution celebrated? With Maxwell House coffee, thereby linking narrative resolution with consumerism.
There is also a more subtle way in which consumerism is presented as the solution to social problems. Mama is set in a period when the commodities being pushed by industries were not yet widely available and much of Mama’s distress is presented as a result of this commodity deficit. If Mama had an electric sowing machine, for example, would she be as overworked and in need of outside help from a friend (a friend who is depicted as more loquacious than helpful)? If the family had a car, couldn’t her daughter go to her friend’s house and still get home in time to practice piano? If Dad had a cool power tool wouldn’t he be more psyched to fix the kitchen drawer? If Mama had all the modern kitchen appliances GE had to offer in the 1950s, wouldn’t her cooking have gone a little faster? Mama attempts to depict poverty – one clearly rooted in long ago and not right now – but rather than connect it to terms such as, say, Papa’s shitty wages (which would draw attention away from consumerism and toward production), it connects the idea of an abstracted poverty with the family’s lack of home appliances.
Crap, sorry I posted the question as part of the comment AGAIN!
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