Don Quixote would be proud
Written: Nov 06 '00 (Updated Nov 06 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Excellent critiques and satire of cultural and commercial trends
Cons: Often unrealistic in its aims and methods, occasionally poor sense of humor (see review)
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| geenius's Full Review: Adbusters Magazine |
Adbusters is one of the most interesting publications on newsstands, though probably not the best. It contains four types of content: satirical parodies of major advertising campaigns, critical analyses of cultural and commercial trends, brief news articles on corporate behavior and what can only be called "other." ("Other" generally, but not always, consists of multiple-page photo spreads, presumably meant to be considered "artistic," carrying some vaguely anticorporate message.)
Adbusters suffers from three flaws that nearly all progressive and radical publications seem to suffer from: it doesn't have a really firm grasp on what it can accomplish, it doesn't always have a very good sense of humor -- not that it fails to see humor where it exists, but rather that it thinks it's being funny when it simply isn't -- and it can get pretty pretentious at times, especially in those "art" spreads. Nevertheless, I enjoy Adbusters a great deal. Its satire is great (I can imagine Ralph Nader's campaign ads -- the ones that spoofed Mastercard and Monster.com commercials -- coming out of the brains of Adbusters editors), and in its critical articles, it does an outstanding job at philosophical analysis of cultural trends. We live in a very anti-intellectual culture, and it's refreshing to see people thinking about our lives and our behavior and what they mean. Adbusters also seems to have learned a lesson that The Nation hasn't, which is that the human mind has a limited capacity for outrage. Adbusters knows that readers won't put up with relentless doomsaying and excoriation -- it has to be broken up with something that can make the reader smile, give him a respite from the negativity. It walks the fine line between stoking the fires of righteousness in readers and burning them out.
The title of the magazine is related to its espousal of "culture jamming," a technique of responding to mass culture in unexpected ways that put people off their guard and, hopefully, goad them into thinking about that culture. I'm not sure how effective this technique is; I can't point to any arena -- legislation, corporate policy, consumer behavior -- in which it's had a noticeable effect. For example, for several years Adbusters has been promoting "Buy Nothing Day," intended as an antidote to frenzied post-Thanksgiving consumerism. I know a lot of folks who are quite sympathetic to Adbusters' agenda, but they still go out and hit the sales.
Normally you wouldn't expect a magazine to be able to persuade people to stop shopping, and so this wouldn't be grounds for criticism. But Adbusters seems to have been conceived of as a device, a means to an end, a machine for modifying the public's consciousness. On this score, I'm not sure that it succeeds -- though you've got to give it credit for trying, because its goals are noble and worthwhile. It's just got an awfully high wall to clear. This, remember, is a country where a guy paid to have "Capitalism stops at nothing" run across a news-and-advertising ticker in a subway station and riders were so freaked out that the agency yanked it.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
geenius
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Member: Geenius at Wrok
Location: Oak Park, Ill.
Reviews written: 64
Trusted by: 10 members
About Me:
A brain powerful enough to peel paint.
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