Blog 3
B
For Better lives I chose Navigating through Clothing, as I have always been curious about the boundaries between fashion styling and costume, and felt this was an opportunity to involve myself in something I wouldn’t usually have the chance to, and to investigate the differences further. Although at first I struggled to directly link the research for this project to the themes, I did find it interesting how factors that play into such themes as diversity, sustainability and power can be translated to something as simple as the story of Hansel and Gretel. In Hansel and Gretel the two children, neglected and starving, are deceived by the all-powerful witch, lured into her candy home and entrapped and manipulated for her own gain (dinner!) It is interesting to interpret such explicit shows of power hierarchies and manipulation within the story, and relate them to the world of power and advertising that I researched prior to the initial lectures.
The more I researched public relations and power structures that we are all implicit in the more I realized the all-encompassing nature of it; how much we cannot understand, how difficult it is to really see the bigger picture when it surrounds us almost entirely. So much of our lives, from what we eat to what we wear to where we go, what we think of certain public figures, what music we listen to, is impacted on a subconscious level by what we consume daily. The news we see on timelines and the telly is filtered and curated to fit particular needs, our social media timelines shaped to show us what we want to see, to boost success of the corporation. It’s so easy to see these patterns and tropes in stories, but so difficult in real life.
The more I learnt about translating ideas to stories or applying concepts to characters, the more I began to appreciate storytelling as a means of making information digestible. I decided on the witch as the character for my project, and wanted to play on the idea of deceit and of hiding your true intentions that I found to be prevalent in both the story of Hansel and Gretel and in the lectures that affected my research the most. Here the witch becomes a carrier for the ideas of mass media control and the subliminal messaging that surrounds the modern human.
During the outbreak of COVID-19, where ‘sympathetic’ corporate messages are plastered everywhere every minute encouraging trust and compassion from consumers as companies are “here to support us during these difficult times”, the idea of something falsely inviting and warm, as the witch so blatantly is, seemed particularly relevant. With her towering, uncanny valley-esque camouflage of badly rendered flesh and realms of soft candyfloss hair, overtly sweet in sprinkles cream and gummy toothed smile, the witch forces herself into an inviting form to tempt, lure and exploit the children. Like her candy house she is built to evoke an empty sense of security. She isn’t a human of course, and she only wants to eat Hansel and Gretel really, but she is half convincing and that is enough for the hungry children.
7th May 2020 @ 8:12 pm
It was not the easiest task to choose a blog to comment on as I have skimmed many wonderful peer writings. Finally, I have chosen the third blog of Rose Brooks, who was also taking part in ‘Navigating through clothing’ workshops. For me, it felt interesting to compare how we both approached the same task and came up with quite different ideas! I am a big fan of her illustrations and collages which were reviewed during the online sessions already. So I was more than happy to find her interpretations of her striking visuals and learn more about the concepts behind them.
In her blog Rose talks about media that surrounds us everyday and its manipulative reasons. In this way she focuses on gaps in social responsibility and the faults of the fashion industry. I found her thoughts especially insightful. As I did not have much knowledge about power of advertising prior reading this blog I was guided though the problems followed by rich metaphors and clear explanations. I especially loved how she compared the greedy manipulative witch from the story ‘Hansel and Gretel’ with the world of power and advertising. In the story the all-powerful witch ‘kindly’ welcomes two lost starving children with sweets and pastries while being a cannibal in disguise. Quite similar tactics are being used in advertising today where consumers are put in a bubble of consumption. Our purchasing habits and the things we see on social media are all filtered to shape and meet our taste in order to boost success of corporations. This parasitic relationship between consumers and companies is what we face everyday and which is a ‘norm’.
I think the way Rose created witch character was very smart. By using imagery of dripping jello, gummies, cotton candy, sprinkles and cake which are often perceived and presented in a sweet ‘positive’ manner, she has twisted this perception to make a daunting flesh-alike appearance of a woman. In my humble opinion, Rose not only questions ‘sympathetic’ messages from companies which are bombarding us everyday but also succeeds to visualise the problem with a simple yet powerful transformation – sweets and pastries become into a grotesque marmalade.
I absolutely agree with Rose that it is much easier to see the masks of power and manipulation in tales compared to the real life. However, the use of symbols, in this case, the portrayal of the overly sweet witch from ‘Hansel and Gretel’ enables us to see beneath the surface of advertising and its real means. As Rose writes, the witch is half convincing, however the starvation that children suffer from is so bad that they readily surrender to the ‘empty sense of security’. The interpretational links between the tale and advertising would have been even more convincing if Rose did include another crushing fact – small children today are also exposed to the media everyday and if not protected or educated are soon becoming just another players in the mechanism of insensitive consumption cycles.
To sum up I greatly enjoyed analysing the third blog of Rose Brooks which is formed around a unique interpretation of the tale ‘Hansel and Gretel”. I feel that it resonates very well with the Better Lives themes, highlighting Social Responsibility.
https://1920betterlivessmc.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2020/05/05/blog-3-15/