environment/nature

First, the commercial (found here):

I love and hate this commercial because of androcentrism.  Androcentrism is the idea that we value masculinity over femininity such that we admire both men and women for performing masculinity.  Androcentrism explains why we tend to like it when women drink beer, play sports, and become lawyers, but do not typically think it’s equally awesome when men cry, wear skirts, learn to knit, or become interior designers.   Here is my crash course on androcentrism.

In any case, I kinda love the fact that the hot chick in this commercial represents strength and we’re obviously supposed to think she’s awesome.  But the guy in the commercial, who is supposed to represent sissy hippy environmentalism, doesn’t exactly come off as awesome.  He is funny, stupid, ridiculous.  And I kind of hate that.  In a perfect world, men would be allowed to do things associated with femininity without being considered uncool.

I’ve posted about the phenomenon of what I’ve called leftist balkanization or the way in which leftist causes tend to be narrowly focused such that they undermine other leftist causes (see here for my original post and here and here for two follow-ups).  Perhaps the opposite of such balkanization is social movements that try to bring together issues that find themselves on opposite sides of the political spectrum.  Below are two advertisements for the pro-environment anti-immigration movement.  The argument is that restricting immigration is good for the environment.

This first commercial from the Californians for Population Stabilization makes exactly this point:

You might be asking yourself whether this pro-environment anti-immigration message is really just an anti-immigration message shrouded in leftist rhetoric.   In this case, at least based on the commercial below from the same organization, the answer appears to be “yes.”

Of course, it’s not necessarily true that all anti-immigrant pro-environment messages are secretly simply xenophobic. For a great discussion of this troubled movement, see Leslie King’s great article that shows how challenging it is to mobilize a grass roots movement when one half of your message offends one half of the population and the other half of your message offends the other.

Via copyranter.

In this McCain-Palin ad which, I believe, started running yesterday, it is stated that an Obama presidency will bring on international military conflict (at least that’s my reading of the images), while a McCain presidency means no international military conflict.

Sociologically what is interesting about this ad is the way in which danger can be socially constructed. What we fear most is not necessarily what is most likely to cause us harm. Consider, most of us are more afraid of riding in hot air balloons than cars but, even proportionally, your chances of dying in a hot air balloon crash are much smaller than your chances of dying in a car crash. People around us–e.g., our parents and friends, but also politicians–try to shape the degree of fear we have for any given situation. Politicans, especially, are not necessarily doing it out of a concern for our well-being.

What do we really need to fear in the next four years? This McCain ad nicely tries to draw our attention away from the fear of, say an economic depression or climate change, in favor of an international military conflict. Though he doesn’t say so explicitly, it seems obvious to me that he’s implying a terrorist attack. It’s not obvious to me, though, that a military conflict or terrorist attack is more likely to cause extreme and extended suffering than any other potential crisis, but it would useful to McCain if I thought so, because it’s the one sphere in which it is widely agreed that McCain is superior to Obama. Thus, as an extremely powerful figure, he attempts to shape our collective understanding of what is (most) dangerous, what we should (most) fear, and win the presidency through the cultivation of a culture of fear.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how certain characteristics–like intelligence, artistic talent, and athleticism–are often understood to be inborn, innate, or natural.  If intelligence, for example, is believed to be inborn, the idea that people can nurture their intelligence and get smarter can get lost.  In which case, it might seem to be a fool’s errand to work to become better at things in which we don’t believe we are naturally gifted.  What potential could we collectively tap if we believed, instead, that the intelligence, artistic talent, and athleticism in each of us could be grown through effort?

I was reminded of these thoughts by this Nike commercial called “Fate” (found here).  Comments after the video:

This commercial posits that LaDainian Tomlinson and Troy Polamalu were born to play football.  Such a narrative erases all of the incredibly hard physical and mental work that Polamalu and Tomlinson no doubt put in over their lives, at the same time that it discourages anyone who does not believe that “fate” has been so kind from trying to develop their own athletic ability.

During World War II, the government encouraged carpooling because they needed the gas and rubber for the war (source). Here is a sample of the propaganda:

This one is, as it appears, by Dr. Seuss:

The next two are from the State of Ohio:

In the comments, both Eoin and Toban B. (T.B.) pointed us to this poster (found here).

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

The ever-awesome Elizabeth, of Blog of Stench, sent in this image of a reusable shopping bag (found here):

Elizabeth says this “conspicuous, confrontational environmentalism” annoys her,

…because its point is not just to “save a tree,” but also to “look fashionable while doing it” [quote from organize.com]. I have a problem with pro forma environmentalism where the appearance of environmentalism matters more than actual actions, as is the case with this bag. The text on the bag equates “saving the planet” with using this particular bag or, by extension, making a show of one’s environmentalism. Furthermore and much more problematically, the implied contrast between the owner who is “saving the planet” and the audience who is being interrogated suggests that the audience is not doing anything to save the planet. The audience may be doing environmentally conscious activities in other areas of life; or the audience may have mitigating factors that prevent them from spending extra money in order to flaunt their environmentalism like white urban bourgeois hipsters.

For another example of environmentalism as fashion statement, see this post.

Thanks, Elizabeth!

Zach W. sent in this Mini Cooper ad (found here) that talks about the car’s “carfun footprint,” which is “a measure of how fun your car is versus how much impact it has on the environment”:

Clearly it’s awesome if car manufacturers are realizing they actually have to address the environmental aspects of their cars, but what grabbed my attention is that in the main text it says the Mini gets 37 mpg, but when you read the fine print at the bottom, you find out that in town it’s 28 mpg, and that’s the hard-top manual transmission Mini. According to this article, the convertible gets 30-32 mpg on the highway, and Yahoo’s autos page shows them getting in the low-20s per gallon in-town. As a Honda Civic driver, that doesn’t strike me as much to brag about, really. I mean, ok, yes, better than the Mercury my grandma bought last year, but still. (Note: I think my grandma is the last person on earth to buy a Mercury.)

Thanks, Zach!

NEW: Claire T. sent in this ad for o.b. tampons (found at Science Daily):

I think when even tampons are being advertised as environmentally-friendly, we can safely say that the idea of being eco-conscious is becoming fairly mainstream (though that, of course, means little about how people actually act).

Thanks, Claire!

Exactly in line with Gwen’s last post on symbolizing an eco-friendly identity, Dorothee H. sent us a link to a commerical linking leftist politics to the smart car.  I think Gwen’s comments say it all and Dorothee’s submission illustrates it beautifully:

See also this commercial that uses pro-communist sentiment to market a car.

Certain consumption choices have become badges of environmental consciousness, often to the exclusion of encouraging people to engage in other, less obvious lifestyle changes like, you know…maybe not buying so much stuff.

This tote bag, designed by a British activist group, came out last summer and became a fashion accessory:

According to this story from Time (which is also where I found the image),

…the bag was first introduced in Great Britain in April —Keira Knightley, Alicia Silverstone and singer Lily Allen were photographed carrying it, fashion magazines jumped on the trend, it was part of the Oscar swag, and before the bags hit the country’s Sainsbury grocery shops, supposed to be its primary retailer, a fanatic fashion following had taken root. The bags sold out immediately, with many turning up on eBay for hundreds of dollars. When 20,000 were released at 450 supermarkets across England, women got in line at 2 a.m. and had snapped up all of them by 9 a.m.

Soon enough, the controversy erupted…The Evening Standard revealed that the so-called green carriers were made in China, using cheap labor, and that the bag was neither organic nor fair trade.

Hindmarch responded that the message of We Are What We Do is that by changing the small things you do in everyday life you can make a large difference. Her company, she said, worked with a reputable supplier in China whose workers are paid double the minimum wage and that complies with Chinese Labor Law. And the bags were shipped by sea, and carbon credits were purchased to offset the environmental impact of production and transport.