80s ads #1
I am currently engaged in a study of 1980s television, which study also includes the commercials of the time. Since the shows are fairly familiar to most people, I thought I might post some of the notable commercials here.First is an ad for an unfortunately-named diet pill--and yes, this is a real ad:
This is from 1983 or so, but amazingly, they kept these on the market until 1987!
Second is actually something I saw an ad for rather than the ad itself--a strange short film starring David Letterman:
And third...well, couldn't find the ad I actually saw, but this is pretty close, even if it neglects some key lines. This was actually a movie.
Along with watching the first day of MTV and (accidentally) Friday the 13th Part 2, this is all making me think about 80s aesthetics--what they were, where they came from, what they imply. It goes beyond the comedic signifiers of the period, like big hair and neon spandex, and I think it incorporates things beyond simple visuals or style. If we regard "the 80s" as a kind of individual, where did its tastes come from?
Labels: commercials, pop, style, TV
posted by Mike B. @ 12:54 PM
5 Comments:
I remember the Ayds diet things. My mother used to buy them and since they looked like little caramels we tried them. Yuck.
hmmmm...this seems really, really broad for a research topic. the entire decade, and all of its cultural products, sharing aesthetics because they share a decade? i'm not sure if this leads anywhere that other sorts of analysis might. sure, if you pick and choose your examples correctly, then any sort of taxonomy might work. what about technological innovations and/or limitations (the old school video tube cameras give that Letterman piece its texture, and uh Letterman seems to give it the rest--purposeful amateurism, self-referentiality, etc.). As far as the AYDS thing, i mean it's interesting to play it for retro-lolz, but i don't see it as anything other than a drug ad with signifiers of the time (that you seem to, rightfully, want to ignore--the dress, the car, the fact that AIDS hadn't entered the popular dialogue). how is this format really any different from current pharma-ads with actors and "experts"?
Again, it just seems like an arbitrary decision to say "80s" instead of locating something like a specific generic trend, form of cultural/gender/ethnic representation, or technological thing, most of which i would think supercede decade markers.
there's a lot to be said for Reagan's cultural impact, though. a friend of mine once phoned in a paper about "Sledgehammer" and Reagan-era representations of masculinity that was pretty fun. might be able to snag a copy of it for you if you're interested. have some other refs that might work for you too.
Oh sorry, I was totally just being coy. What I really meant was, I am taking a class in TV since 1980 right now, and also I am thinking about the galaxy of aesthetics in the 80s and how they stylistically connect, if at all. And only in order to use it in a blog post.
As for my actual research subject, I am going through EBSCOhost right this minute and finding approximately diddly. Sad face.
(None of the people from my program read the blog--that I know of--so I am wary of sounding too much like a student to an audience that, as far as I know, only includes one person in academia, which would be you. Grumpy fans of bands I've given negative reviews to have found my homepage and assumed that I am a snot-nosed freshman at UGA, and lord knows that's not an impression I want to give...)
oh.
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