Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse

Synopsis

In this highly anticipated sequel to his groundbreaking Advertising & the End of the World, media scholar Sut Jhally explores the devastating personal and environmental fallout from advertising, commercial culture, and rampant American consumerism.

Ranging from the emergence of the modern advertising industry in the early 20th century to the full-scale commercialization of the culture today, Jhally identifies one consistent message running throughout all of advertising: the idea that corporate brands and consumer goods are the keys to human happiness. He then shows how this powerful narrative, backed by billions of dollars a year and propagated by the best creative minds, has blinded us to the catastrophic costs of ever-accelerating rates of consumption.

The result is an ideal teaching tool for courses that look at commercialism, media culture, social well-being, environmental issues, and the tensions between capitalism and democracy.

Release Date:2017

Duration:60 min

ISBN:1-944024-10-7

Subtitles:English

Trailers

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Filmmaker Credits

Written and Directed by

Sut Jhally and Jeremy Earp

Produced by

Loretta Alper

Edited by

Sut Jhally, Jeremy Earp, and Jason Young

Resources: Downloads and Related Links

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Transcript

Praise

"Once again, Sut Jhally shows us why it is so urgent that we recognize and respond to the challenges of our hyper-commercialized culture. In Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse, Professor Jhally explains with riveting clarity the social power of advertising. Jhally's critique of advertising's false promise that consumption can buy happiness and his analysis of the propaganda of commodities are a compelling call to rethink any benign assumptions about consumer culture – and to take action to create a more sustainable society. This film will, no doubt, be a wonderfully engaging educational resource, but its message is so timely and powerful that we will all benefit if this inspiring film is viewed and discussed beyond the classroom.”

— William Hoynes
Professor of Sociology at Vassar College

"In this important update, Sut Jhally reminds us that the siren call of advertising has not been mitigated in the digital age. The consequences for our relationships, our environment, and our society are as potent and dire as ever.”

— Mara Einstein
Professor of Media Studies at Queens College
Author of Blacks Ops Advertising: Native Ads, Content Marketing, and the Covert World of the Digital Sell

"Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse is an extraordinary documentary, interesting visually and for the spoken text that includes references to science, social science studies, and political figures. It first focuses in on the development of sophisticated advertising as a way to deal with a major problem of economies that are based on, and motivated by, gaining ever greater profits. Capitalist countries produce enormous amounts of goods and must somehow convince people to buy them. Thus, the need in words of the early to mid century economist Joseph Schumpeter, to deploy “elaborate psychotechnics of advertising.” Advertising has become so pervasive in the media (including product placement in movies) and on the internet (Google and Facebook are mainly in the business of selling adds) that it has transformed our very culture. The consumerism that it encourages has helped to develop the ideology that what’s important is the individual and his/her consumption and not the well being of one’s community or the larger society. The film also explores the ecological damage being done by the massive production and consumption of more and more stuff, within a system that must grow and strive to produce more next year than this year. It gets to the heart of ecological and political problems facing humanity, outcomes of the very way the economic system works. Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse also explores activism of people who are fighting against the consumerism and ecological destruction of capitalism. This is a film that should be seen by everyone concerned with environmental degradation and the social issues of inequality and poverty that plague the earth. It would be especially useful to be seen in group settings in which the critical issues raised can be discussed after viewing."

— Fred Magdoff
Professor Emeritus of Plant and Soil Science at the University of Vermont
Co-author of What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism

"Why has our society failed to address climate change, which now in the twenty-first century calls into question the very survival of humanity? In Advertising on the Edge of the Apocalypse, Sut Jhally provides a compelling answer, one that few so far have been willing to contemplate: the nature of our advertising and marketing system, a “magic kingdom” which today has come to dominate human consciousness from cradle to grave. If you haven’t seen this film, you will need to see it, and if you do you will want to recommend it to others.”

— John Bellamy Foster
Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon
Editor of the Monthly Review
Co-author of What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism

"Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse shows in a powerful way how more and more sophisticated advertising causes unnecessary consumption which results in severe planetary damage and diverts us from the connections that lead to life-long happiness – close friends and family, healthy communities – making us believe that having more new things can replace those crucially important relationships. This is an important message that we all need to be reminded of in a world saturated with ads."

— John Byrd, Ph.D
Senior Instructor in Managing for Sustainability MBA Program at the University of Colorado Denver

"Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse is an unflinching look at the dominant form of storytelling of our time — the 'fantasy factory' of advertising. The film shows how adverts work on us, manipulating our desires for profit, often at the expense of the natural world. It explores the role of advertising in driving consumerism and environmental breakdown. With lots of facts and real world examples, it invites viewers to think critically about advertising, and equips them to navigate our consumer landscape."

— Jeremy Williams
Co-author of The Economics of Arrival

"Anyone who watches Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse will come away with a clear (and alarming) perspective on how advertising has succeeded in occupying humans' minds, societies, and physical environments. Sut Jhally and his team have interwoven powerful images and empirical facts to show how consumer capitalism is crowding out healthy human values and killing the planet."

— Tim Kasser
Professor & Chair of Psychology at Knox College
Author of The High Price of Materialism and Hypercapitalism: The Modern Economy, its Values, and How to Change Them

"Recommended."

— Educational Media Reviews Online