Week Nine: Pranking Rhetoric

Culture jamming, according to Harold, is ‘an artful proliferation of messages…which challenges the ability of corporate discourses to make meaning in predictable ways.’ However, Harold distinguishes between parody and pranking.

Pranking, Harold’s preferred method, can be viewed as the adornment and folding of texts. The goal is not to create a new meaning, but to challenge the idea of meaning itself. A good example of this is the Biotic Baking Brigade, which threw pies into faces of famous people it considered to be promoting questionable values (such as capitalism). The act in itself did little to challenge norms, other than that of authority.

In contrast, parody aims to change things in the name of a presupposed value. A successful example would be Adbusters' 2003 campaign to sell the ‘ethical’ Blackspot sneaker as an alternative to Nike. Here, Adbusters drew on the presupposed value of fair labour to challenge Nike’s use of sweatshops. Parody can also be successful in ‘rebranding’ products. Brands aim to associate themselves with concepts: for Nike, these may be freedom, or discipline. Instead, Adbusters attempted to associate the Nike brand with unfair labour.

Harold criticises parody because it fails to challenge the hierarchy of language and all its binaries. However, I believe that this is a positive thing. All texts and authors (including culture jammers) are socially, economically and politically situated and thus have their own biases. Trying to pretend otherwise would be counter-productive. Presenting parody against corporate advertising, I believe, allows the audience to arrive at their own ‘truth.’ This works in a manner similar to our adversarial court system. Hearing binary arguments does not prevent the reader from choosing a middle ground.

Like advertisements, subvertisements rely on existing norms and values. The fashion industry associated the norm of beauty with its models and clothes. Retaliating, subvertisements used commercial rhetoric to associate the industry with unhealthy choices. Adbusters featured a model vomiting into a toilet. Recently, Dove launched its Campaign for Real Beauty, appropriating the norm of natural beauty from subvertisements in order to sell its beauty products. Should the norms of the advertisement be celebrated, or is it even more dangerous than other commercial advertisements? Unlike pranking, parody is open to challenge.

Another example of parody moving into the mainstream was ABC TV’s Gruen Transfer, which dissected various advertisements. It aired subvertisements (such as anti-tourism) and encouraged critical engagement with culture and advertising. For example, in ‘Consumer’s Revenge,’ users are invited to mix their own advertisements.

Do you believe that parody or pranking is the more successful method?
Does the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty make you uncomfortable, in that it is ‘hijacking’ parody for commercial purposes?
Can culture jamming make a real difference?