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Marshall McLuhan

Marshall McLuhan. The Mechanical Bride Popular Culture Advertising Messages. Marshall McLuhan. Canadian educator philosopher scholar professor of English literature literary critic Rhetorician communication theorist. July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980. The Mechanical Bride.

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Marshall McLuhan

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  1. Marshall McLuhan The Mechanical Bride Popular Culture Advertising Messages

  2. Marshall McLuhan • Canadian educator • philosopher • scholar • professor of English literature • literary critic • Rhetorician • communication theorist. • July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980

  3. The Mechanical Bride • The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man (1951) • Interest in Popular Culture was influenced by Culture and Environment (1933) – F.R. Leavis and Denys Thompson • Mechanical Bride is from a piece of art by Marcel Duchamp • 59 sections • Composed of short essays

  4. Marcel Duchamp • The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even • Where Marshall McLuhan got the title for his novel The Mechanical Bride

  5. The Mechanical Bride • Essays begin with newspaper or magazine article or advertisement, followed by McLuhan’s analysis theory • Folklore: beliefs, customs, and values passed down through media • “Folklore of our society is determined, not by education or religion, but by mass media”

  6. Popular Culture • Analyzes popular culture’s affect on people • Concern for Sex and Technology in advertising • “one dream opens into another until reality and fantasy are made interchangeable” • Troubled by unchecked forces shaping the lives of people

  7. Popular Culture • Hollywood and advertising agencies strive to “enter and control the unconscious minds of a vast public… in order to exploit them for profit” • Observer is “shaped and molded like Silly Putty” • Tribal chieftains, medicine men, nobility, and religious leaders control the people • Ads, comics, and movies are not what they seem

  8. Advertising Messages • Freedom to listen – Freedom to Look: An Ad for the Radio Corporation of America tells of a rural family doing their business with the radio on. • McLuhan: “we still have our freedom to listen?” and here “Come on kiddies. Buy a radio and feel free – to listen.” • Freedom to listen, but you still have to pay to be able to listen

  9. Advertising Messages • For Men of Distinction – Lord Calvert: An Ad for Lord Calvert whiskey depicts nine gentlemen holding a glass of their whiskey • McLuhan: “Why pick on the arts? Hasn’t anyone in science or industry ever distinguished himself by drinking whiskey?” • Everyone is equal, so why classify one group of people as something?

  10. Advertising Messages • The Famous DuBarry Success Course: An Ad for beauty creams complete with female model in a swimsuit hawks itself as a “success course” complete with “tuition” • McLuhan: “why laugh and grow fat when you can experience anguish and success in a straight jacket?” • To be famous and have eyes on you, you have to go through pain and anguish and be virtually mad

  11. Works cited http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan#The_Mechanical_Bride_.281951.29 http://www.gingkopress.com/02-mcl/z_philip-b-meggs-mech-bride.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bride_Stripped_Bare_By_Her_Bachelors,_Even http://gordondouglas.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/12641w_marcelduchamp_bridestrippedbare1.jpg

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