i saw this truck in union square. and honestly, i think because of how embedded images like this are to our culture, were it not for this class encouraging us to pay attention to the media around us and the way it is used to sell products, i maybe would not have noticed this as anything noteworthy at all.
but of course now i do. and when i see this i can ask questions about it. i can ask myself what this is trying to sell, how does it hope to achieve the desirability of the product, does it work, and most importantly what/how does this contribute to our everyday culture by being surrounded by strategies like this.
i think the ironic thing about this media moment si that what it's trying to sell is supposedly physical health: "new comfort food and cold pressed juice." this is selling you vitamins, nutrients, and natural foods. but this physical health is directly tied into the creation of mental and psychological malnutrition. the tactic to make the health food products enticing to the viewer is that they will bring their customers closer into looking more like those bodies we see being advertised on the truck. the paradox is that the health foods is encouraging you to have unhealthy perspective about your own body as it is right now.
is there any way to escape these images of physical perfection, even as businesses are trying to lure their customers, supposedly, into physical health? or are these images of perfection and galmour just so deeply embedded and a part of advertising's fundamental vocabulary that they will just always be synonymous to advertising culture?
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