English 1 In the Shadow of the Image

rB2 CHAPTER 4 lmaqes

Ih* Th,lf 5L{A*{}'.}AJ *f Tililij...4,{i.*;f:: Stuart and €lizabeth tuen

Stuort qnd Elizobeth Ewen hove eqch wrilten severql books qnd qdicles on the history ond meoning of populor culture. Cuhurql scholqr Stuort Ewen's vo* indudes ,AII Cons uming lmoge: The Politics o{ Style in bnlemporory Culture ond Coptoins of C-onsciouness. Hisfrcrion Elizo- beth Bven's vork includes Immigrcnt Womq in the Lond of fullorc 19851. Channds of Desire ,198211, fnom which fie following selection is token, is their ftrst full-lmgth olloborotion. The Ewens orgue thqt much of whqt Americqns under$lund qbou selFimoge is oc{uolly o reflection of mqss-mediq imoges. As this escry illustrol,es, todoy't culture is ore living "in ihe shodow of lhe imoge," whether the imoge is presenl in odverlising, nervs reporting, or populor blevision qnd ftlm. Errerywhere people go, fiey see imoges creoted br moss onsumption b* oimed qt indMduols. Sometirnes consciously but mostly not, people meosure their looks, lheir moods, their success or lock of it ogoinst the qpp€orqn€s thot surround them doily.

sUoGESTloh| This series of vigneftes describes the doily, often unconscious encounters Americqns hqve with FOR READING populor culture qnd especiollywith commerciol imoges. A" yrc, reqd eqch vignette, fioke note

of the efbcts these encounters s€em tro hqve on the chqroct'--rs the Ewens hove creoted. lf you begin tc lose hock of whqt is going on in this selection, skip to fie finql forrr porogrophs whve ihe point of the vignettes is exploined, then go bsck ond rereod individuol sections.

Maria Aguilar was born twenty-seven years ago near Mayag0ez, on the island of Puerto Rico. Her family had lived off the land for generations. Today she sits in a rattling IRT subway car, speed ing through the iron-and-rock guts of Manhattan. She sits on the rain, her ears dazed by the loud outcry of wheels against tracks. Surrounded by a galaxy of unknown fellow strangers, she looks up at a long strip of colorful signboards placed high above the bobbing heads of the others. All the posters call for her attention.

Looking down at her, a blond-haired lady cabdriver leans out of her driver's side window. Here is the famed philosopher of this strange urban world, and a woman she can talk to. The tough-wise eyes of the cabby combine with a yourhful beauty, speaking to Maria A$uilar directly:

Estoy sentada 12 horas al dia. l.o Ultimo que necesito son hemorroides. (l sit for fwelve hours a day. The last thing I need are hemorrhoids.)

Under this candid testimonial lies a package of Preparation H ointment, and the promise

"Alivia dolores y picasonas. Y ayuda a reducir la hinchazon." (Relieves pain and itching. And helps reduce swelling.) As her mind's eye takes it all in, the train sweeps into Maria's stop. She gets out; climbs the stairs to the street; walks to work where she will spend her day sitting on a stool in a small garment factory, sewing hems on pretty dresses.

Every day, while Benny Doyle drives his Musrang ro work along state Road Number 20, he passes a giant billboard along the shoulder. The billboard is selling whisky and features a woman in a black velvet dress stretching across its brilliant canvas.

5 As Benny Doyle downshifts by, the lounging beauty looks out to him. Day after day he sees her here. The first time he wasn't sure, but now he's convinced that her eyes are following him.

The morning sun shines on the red-tan fore- head of Bill O'Conner as he drinks espresso on his sun deck, alongside the ocean cliffs of La Jolla, California. Turning through the daily paper he reads a story about Zimbabwe.

Stuortond Elizobeth Ewen lntheShadowofthelmage 183

"Rhodesia," he thinks to himself. The story argues that a large number of

Africans in Zimbabwe are fearful about black majority rule, and are concerned over a white exodus. Two black hotel workers are quoted by the article. Bill puts this, as a fact, into his mind.

Later that day, over a business lunch, he repeats the story to five white business associ- ates, sitting at the restaurant table. They share a superior laugh over the ineptitude of black African political rule. Three more tellings, chil- dren of the first, take place over the next four days. These are spoken by two of Bill O'Conner's luncheon companions; passed on to still others in the supposed voice of political wisdom.

t0 Barbara andJohn Marsh get into their seven- year-old Dodge pickup and drive twenty-three miles to the nearest Sears in Cedar Rapids. After years of breakdowns and months of hesitation they've decided to buy a new washing machine. They come to Sears because it is there, and because they believe that their new Sears machine will be steady and reliable. The Marshes will pay for their purchase for the next year or so.

Barbara's great'grandfathea Elijah Simmons, had purchased a cream'separator from Sears, Roebuck in 1897 and he swore by it.

When the clock-radio sprang the morning affront upon him, Archie Bishop rolled resent- fully out of his crumpled bed and trudged slowly to the john. A few moments later he was uncon- sciously squeezing toothpaste out of a mess of red and white Colgate packaging. A dozen scrubs of the mouth and he expectorated a white, minty glob into the basin.

StiU groggy, he turned on the hot water, slap- ping occasional palmfuls onto his gray face.

A can of Noxzema shave cream sat on the edge of the sink, a film of crud and whiskers across its once neat label. Archie reached for the bomb and filled his left hand with a white creamy mound, then spread it over his beard. He shaved, then looked with resignation at the reg- ular collection of cuts on his neck.

Stepping into a shouer, he soaped up with a soap that promised to wake him up. Groggily, he then grabbed a bottle of Clairol Herbal Essence Shampoo. He turned the tablet-shaped bottle to its back label, carefully reading the "Directions."

"Wet hair." He wet his hair. "lather." He lathered. "Rinse." He rinsed. "Repeat if necessary." Not sure whether itwas altogether necessary,

he repeated the process according to directions. Late in the evening, Maria Aguilar stepped

back in the subway train, heading home to the Bronx after a long and tiring day. This time, a poster told her that "The Pain Stops Herel"

She barely noticed, but later she would swal- low rwo New Extra Strength Bufferin tablets with a glass of water from a rusty tap.

Two cockroaches in cartoon form leer out onto the street from a wall advertisement. The man cockroach is drawn like a hipsteq wearing shades and a cockroach zoot-suit. He strolls han& in-hand with a lady cockroach, who is dressed like a floozy and blushing beet-red. Caught in the midst of their cockroach-rendezvous, they step sinfully into a Black Flag Roach Motel. Beneath them, in Spanish, the words:

Las Cwarachas entran...pero non pueden sakr. (ln the English version: Cockroaches check in. ..but they don't check out-)

The roaches are trapped; sin is punished. Salvation is gauged by one's ability to live roach- free. The sinners of the earth shall be inundated by roaches. Moral tales and insects encourage passersby to rid their houses of sin. In their homes, sometimes, people wonder whether God has forsaken them.

Beverly Jackson sits at a metal and tan Formica table and looks through the New York Posr. She is bombarded by a catalog of horror.

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Children are mutilated. . . subway riders attacked. . . . Fanatics are marauding and noble despots lie in bloody heaps. Occasionally someone steps off the crime-infested streets to claim a million dol- lars in lottery winnings.

Beverly Jackson's skin crawls; she feels a knot encircling her lungs. She is beset by immo- bility, hopelessness, depression.

Slowly she walks over to her sixth-floor win- dow, gazing out into the sooty afternoon. From the empty street below, Beverly Jackson imag- ines a uowd yelling 'Jumpl...Jumpl"

Between 1957 and 1966 Frank Miller saw a dozen John Wayne movies, countless other west- erns and war dramas. ln 1969 he led a charge up a hill without a name in Southeast Asia. No one followed; he took a bullet in the chest.

Today he sits in a chair and doesn't get up. He feels that images betrayed him, and now he camps out across from the White House while another movie star cuts benefits for veterans. In the morning newspaper he reads of a massive weapons buildup taking place.

Gina Concepcion now comes to school wear- ing the Jordache look. All this has been made possible by weeks and weeks of afterschool employment at a supermarket checkout counter. Now, each morning, she tugs the decorative denim over her young legs, sucking in her lean belly to close the snaps.

These pants are expensive compared to the "no-name" brands, but they're worfh it, she rea- sons. They fit better, and she fits better.

The theater marquee, stretching out over a crumbling, garbage-srewn sidewalk, announced "The Decline of Western Civilization." At the ticket window a smaller sign read 'All seats SS.OO."

It was ten in the morning andJoyce Hopkins stood before a mirror next to her bed. Her inter- view at General Public Utilities, Nuclear Division, was only four hours away and all she could think was "What to wear?"

A halfhour laterJoyce stood again before the mirror, wearing a slip and stockings. On the bed, next to her, lay a two-foot-high mountain of di* carded options. Mocking the title of a recent best- seller, which she hadn't read, she said aloud to herself, "Dress for Success....What do they like?"

At one o'clock she walked out the door wear- ing a brownish tweed jacket; a cream-colored Qiana blouse, full-cut with a tied collar; a dark beige skirt, fairly sffaight and hemmed (by Maria Aguilar) two inches below the knee; shear fawn stockings, and simple but elegant reddish-brown pumps on her feet. Her hair was to the shouldel her look tawny.

When she got the job she thanked her friend Millie, a middle manager, for the tip not to wear pants.

Joe Davis stood at the endless conveyor, placing caps on a round-the-clock parade of automobile radiators. His nose and eyes burned. His ears buzzed in the din. In a furtive moment he looked up and to the right. On the plant wall was a large yellow sign with THINKI printed on ir in bold type. Joe turned back quickly to the radiator caps.

Fifty years earlier, in another factory, in another state, Joe's grandfather, Nat Davis, had looked up and seen another sign:

A Clean Machine Runs Better. Your Body Is a Machine. KEEP IT CLEAN.

Though he tried and tried, Joe Davis' grand- father was never able to get the dirt out from under his nails. Neither could his great-grandfa- ther, who couldn't read.

In 1952 Mary Bird left her family in Charleston to earn money as a maid in a Philadelphia suburb. She earned thirty-five dol- lars a week, plus room and board, in a dingy retreat of a ranch-sryle ffact house.

Twenty-eight years later she sits on a bus, heading toward her small room in North Philly. Across lrom her, on an advertising poster, a

Stuort ond Elizobeth Ewen ln the Shadow of the lmage 185

sumptuous meal is displayed. Golden fried chicken, green beans glistening with butter and flecked by pimento, and a fluffy cloud of rice fill the greater part of a calico-patterned dinner plate. Next to the plate sit a steaming boat of gravy, and an icy drink in an amber tumbler. The plate is on a quilted blue placemat, flanked by a thick linen napkin and colonial silverware.

As Mary Bird's hungers are aroused, the wording on the placard instructs her: "Come Home to Carolina."

Shopping List paper towels milk eggs rice crispies chicken snacks for kids (twinkies, chips, etc.) potatoes coke, ginger ale, plain soda cheer brillo peanut bufter bread ragu (2 jars) spaghetri saran wrap salad get cleaning, bank, must pay electric!!!

45 On his way to Nina's house, Sidney passed an ad for Smirnoff vodka. A sultry beaury with wet hair and beads of moisture on her smooth, tanned face looked out at him. "Try a Main Squeeze." For a teenage boy the invitation tran- scended the arena of drink; he felt a quick throb- pulse at the base of his belly and his step quickened.

In October of 1957 , at the age of two and a half, Aaron Stone was watching television. Sud- denly, from the black screen, there leaped a cir- cus clown, selling children's vitamins, and yelling "Hi! boys and girls!" He ran, terrified, from the room, screaming.

For years after, Aaron watched television in perpetual fear that the vitamin clown would reap pear. Slowly his family assured him that the televi- sion was just a mechanical box and couldn't really hurt him, that the vitamin clown was harmless.

Today, as an aduh, Aaron Stone takes vita- mins, is ambivalent about clowns, and watches television, although there are occasional moments of anxiety.

These are some of the facts of our lives; dis parate moments, disconnected, dissociated. Meaningless moments. Random incidents. Mem- ory traces. Each is an unplanned encounter, part of day-to-day existence. Viewed alone, each by itself, such spaces of our lives seem insignificant, trivial. They are the decisions and reveries of sur- vival, the stuff of small talk; the chance preoccu- pations of our eyes and minds in a world of images-soon forgotten.

5t! Viewed together, however, as an ensemble, an integrated panorama of social life, human activity, hope and despair, images and infor- mation, another tale unfolds from these vignettes. They reveal a pattern of life, the structures of perception.

As lamiliar moments in American life, all of these events bear the footprints ol a history that weighs upon us, but is largely untold. We live and breathe an atmosphere where mass images are everywhere in evidence; mass produced, mass distributed. In the streets, in our homes, among a crowd, or alone, they speak to us, overwhelm our vision. Their presence, their messages are given; unavoidable. Though their history is still relatively short, their prehistory is, for the most part, forgotten, unimaginable.

The history that unites the seemingly ran- dom routines of daily life is one that embraces the rise of an industrial consumer society. It involves explosive interactions between moder- nity and old ways of life. It includes the prolifer- ation, over days and decades, of a wide, repeatable vernacular of commercial images and ideas. This history spells new patterns of social, productive, and political life.

186 CHAPTER 4 lmaqes

SUGGESIIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Ahhorgh mony of the vignetlres describe the effects of od imog* on so much of the pub-

lic, others, such os the story of Bill O'C.onner, the sirqy of the rooch motel, ond the $rcqy of Joe Dovis, suggest sonrething obo* the woy inbrmotion qnd ewn culturol qttitude$ qre possd olong or processed. Rereod those sections qnd cfhers like them qnd discuss whqt kind of inbrmqtion you unonsciously process in ;our doi! lib. ln your discussion, trke inlrc occount zuch things os lhe choices 1ou moke in whot ic weoq whot ic toke rvhen you hore o cold, how lo qct orcund olhers, whot to beliore obout pohtlcol iszues, ond the like.

2. The grocery list intersperses generic items such qs pqper tonels with nqme brqnds thqt represent generics {such qs brillo br scouring pods). Consider *re products you buy thot qre brand nome. How would you soy your own or your fomily's buying hobits qre influ' enced by whof oppeors in novspopers, on television, on billboords, or on bus-sircp ods? To whot extent do you think those hobits ore inffuenced by loyolty or hobit, like the Morshes' purchose of o new Seors woshing mqchine?

3. Neqr the end of this seleaion, the Ewens wrife, "As fomiliqr momenis in Americon life, oll of these events beqr the footprints of o hisbry thot weighs upon us, but is lorgely untrcld." After rereoding this series of evenls, discuss whot the quthors meon by such o sveeping siqlemenf. Do you see thqt stqlemeni illustrded or not in the observqtions )ou hore mqde obor* the woy you ond the people yw knorv respond to living "in the shodow of the imoge"?

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING 1. Wrib o series of vigneftes obout the doily encounters thot you, your friends, ond your

fomily hove with od imoges. Pay oltention b how ihe Ewens slruclure their piece. The vignetle leqd to o summory stotemenf in which the Ewens briefly exploin whot such q sequence of encounters migh meqn br ihem. lnclude o slrrtemenl hot drows your reoder orloy Fom the vignelcs ond zums up fie sbries with o ommentoqy on pur doily enoun- ters with visuol messcges of oll sorts.

2. Mqke o list of imoges thot you see on most dq)6. Th€ list might include poslers. billboqrds, commerciols, mogozine ond navspoper o&, corloons, rood signs, fumily ond news pho- bs, ond shoprvindov disploys. Write qn essoy in which yor describe the kindr of imoges ;ou encornter doily ond whot fiose imoges seem o be osking of you or tellirg you obout the woy people should look or qct or hel.

3. Neor the srd of this seledion, he Ewsrs write. 'The histcry thot unibs the seemingly ron- dom routines of doily lifo is one lhqt embroces the rise of on industriol consumer socieiy. It involves explosive interqclions between modernity qnd old woys of life. lt includes the prdibrotion, over doys ond decodes, o[ o wide, repeotqble vernqculqr of commerciql imoges ond ideqs. This histoqy gells nerv polterns of sociol, produc{ive, ond politicol lifu." Wrib on explonotion of whot you undersbnd dre outhors fio be scying in thot stotemenf. Provide exomples from )rour own eryerience or reoding thot help moke the meoning cleor br your reoders.