Buddhism, propaganda, anti-propaganda propaganda and so on

It seems like I've been discussing propaganda and the media a lot lately. A lot of it started when I watched Dove's new ad, Onslaught (posted on my friend Patia's blog). The ad made me feel sick to my stomach by first showing an innocent little red-haired girl (of course a spitting image of my future daughter) and then a flurry of advertising images aimed at women. It just gets worse after that with dieting images and then (worse!) plastic surgery... The commercial ends with our little girl and the words:

Talk to your daughter before
the beauty industry does.

"Wow.... Bravo," I thought, "way to go Dove for spending your hard-earned advertising budget on something positive." Now I'm not naïve. I know that this kind of advertising might just make it more likely that I will choose to by Dove next time I'm at the store (fact check: yep, I am a long-time Dove purchaser, but I think more because it's cheaper than other name-brands). But I figure that if their ads are actually a force for good, I'd much rather support them anyhow.

~

Then I read a post on The Situationist called, "Hey Dove! Talk to YOUR Parent." Apparently Dove is a subsidiary of a larger company, Unilever, which also makes Lynx body spray. And it just so happens that Lynx advertising is about as awful as it gets (you can see the ads in the Situationist post - picture hundreds of girls in tiny bikinis running at a guy with the words:

Spray more
Get more

displayed on the screen.

So... In effect Unilever is warning us against the evils of the beauty industry with its right hand and exploiting women and sexuality as a whole with its left. Pretty sinister, huh? Exploit sexuality, make money. Exploit the fact that a lot of us are fed up with the exploitation of sexuality, make more money. Next we'll see another Unilever company warning us against commercials altogether (at last!). And making more money (booo!).

I also discussed this a bit with, Lenart, one of my new flatmates. I said, "can't we just create commercials that teach us to see through all this corporate crap, to see that we're being brainwashed with images of beauty, masculinity, prosperity, and so on." He told me they tried that with young people [in Slovenia I think, where he's from]. But one problem: they underestimate the power of these industries. Even when people know that they're being brainwashed by it all, they are still affected.

~~~

So, on the one hand I'm being told that I'm too fat, too old, too poor (and all this would be solved if I just purchased X or Y-services) and that my fiancée is also somehow failing in every way that she isn't a wafer-thin twenty-two year-old rich model (really, they tell me this, I'm not making it up). That's one thing. I think I can even handle all of that. I love myself and my fiancée and I've read enough philosophy to know that youth, beauty, and/or wealth do not bring happiness.

But then this:



It's not that I'm opposed to the armed forces per se, but the glamorization of them really disturbs me.

Even more bizzare was this (from my new abode of England):



It mixes battle scenes, running with an injured person, and running across a tropical beach with (you guessed it) skinny, bikini-clad women. To give it credit though, at least it focuses more on what looks like the humanitarian aspects of the armed forces while the US ad just kind of pounds in the notion of Strength (which in itself isn't a bad thing).

~

Now for the 'anti-propaganda' propaganda. I couldn't find the original that this spoofs - I'd love a nice side-by-side comparison - but I'm sure you know the gist of it.



And, oddly equally stomach-wrenching (shouldn't it be more) as the Dove ad:



And this poignant rap:



The question: who to trust in the midst of all this? Nobody?

Yep. Nobody. As I meditate on one of the central themes in Buddhism, ignorance (Skt. avidya, Pali avijja), I see that both sides are filled with misconstruals of the truth (i.e. lies). And I, as a third ignorant party, have my own dilusions about the matters.

Considering the Dove ads, the biggest mistake would be to think that we see here 'both sides' of the industry or the beauty debate. Far from it. We're getting two corporate angles, two methods of selling stuff. As my friend Lenart pointed out to me, "at the end of the day, you're still getting the same message, that you have to buy things, or there is something wrong with you."

With the military/anti-military ads it is slightly different in that you're getting two radically different messages. But both distort the facts, both play with our emotions with graphics (and the music in that first one, sheesh). But in the end we could say they're both selling something, an ideology. And the ideology of militarism is one that will get more than a few bucks out of your pocket - it can get chunks of your life, perhaps all of it. And anti-militarism seeks no less (though I doubt they can recruit many, like Cindy Sheehan, that will put their life on hold for the cause).

So where does the Buddhist stand in the midst of all of this? A bit bewildered? Yes, quite likely. I don't recall if it was Lenart of me that suggested that we need a Buddhist advertising company - producing comercials that just tell us to be happy with who we are, to love those around us, to find contentment in a simple life, practice generosity, and so on.

Ahhh... but wait. (I think I blogged about just one such music video not to long ago)... Perhaps it's not quite perfect, but it's a start:

Based on the teachings of Mipham Rinpoche ("Mipham the Great", 1846-1912). It takes a minute to get into, but watch it (at least listen) to the very end - it's worth it.

may you be happy

may you be happy

may you be happy.

I'm sure this won't end our worries about beauty and war today, tomorrow, or in the near future. But it does seem to be the Buddhist answer. To quote from Bikkhu Bodhi on the power and importance of simply following the precept to abstain from harm:

The Buddha says that one who abstains from the destruction of life gives immeasurable safety and security to countless living beings. How the simple observance of a single precept leads to such a result is not immediately obvious but calls for some thought. Now by myself I can never give immeasurable safety and security to other beings by any program of positive action. Even if I were to go on protest against all the slaughterhouses in the world, or to march against war continuously without stopping, by such action I could never stop the slaughter of animals or ensure that war would come to an end. But when I adopt for myself the precept to abstain from the destruction of life, then by reason of the precept I do not intentionally destroy the life of any living being. Thus any other being can feel safe and secure in my presence; all beings are ensured that they will never meet harm from me. Of course even then I can never ensure that other living beings will be absolutely immune from harm and suffering, but this is beyond anyone's power. All that lies within my power and the sphere of my responsibility are the attitudes and actions that emanate from myself towards others. And as long as these are circumscribed by the training rule to abstain from taking life, no living being need feel threatened in my presence, or fear that harm and suffering will come from me.