Rebellion. It's In Our Jeans

George Bartlett

Bournemouth University


Abstract

Robert Pfaller and Slavoj Žižek founded the theory of interpassivity, which refers to a situation in which an object deprives a subject of its passivity through the use of an ‘other’. My research explores the way in which rebellion and counterculture can be transferred from an active process, into something much more passive. Using the theory of interpassivity through the advertising case study of Levi Strauss & Co., this piece analyses the way in which brands are able to unburden consumers from any desire to act on rebellious impulse. It is by brands allowing consumers to unburden themselves of any anger or frustration towards the system they are a part of, without any action required on the part of the subject, which allows for the mainstream and the counterculture to live harmoniously alongside one another. I conclude on a paradox, that society may now continue to go about their consumer-capitalist fuelled lives, safe in the knowledge that they tried to change it through their consumer-capitalism.

References

Adorno, T. and Horkheimer, M., 1997. Dialectic of Enlightenment. 6th ed. London: Verso.

Allyn, D., 2001. Make love, not war: The sexual revolution: An unfettered history. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Baudrillard, J., 1983. Simulations. Translated by Paul Foss, Paul Patton and Philip Beitchman. United States of America: Semiotext[e].

Baudrillard, J., 1988. Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Big Think, 2016. John Cleese: Political Correctness Can Lead to an Orwellian Nightmare [video, online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAK0KXEpF8U [Accessed 20 April 2016].

Boston Globe, 1999. People stand on a section of the Berlin wall at Potsdamer Platz. Getty Images [image, online]. Available from: http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/people-stand-on-a-section-of-the-berlin-wall-at-potsdamer-news-photo/119583155 [Accessed 13 May 2016].

Catalano, C., 2001. Shaping the American Woman: Feminism and Advertising in the 1950s. Constructing the Past, 3 (1), 45–55.

Creative Review, 2011. Hegarty: This creative life [image, online]. Available from: https://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2011/june/hegarty-this-creative-life/ [Accessed 13 May 2016].

De Mooij, M. K., 2005. Global marketing and advertising: Understanding cultural paradoxes. 2nd edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Debord, G., 1994. The society of the spectacle. New York: Zone Books.

Devlin, R., 1997. Female Juvenile Delinquency and the Problem of Sexual Authority in America, 1945-1965. Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities, 9 (1), 147–182.

Downey, L., 2009. Images of America: Levi Strauss and Co. United States: Arcadia Publishing (SC).

Downey, L., 2014. A Short History of Denim. Levi Strauss & Co. Available from: http://lsco.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/A-Short-History-of-Denim2.pdf [Accessed 10 April 2016].

Engel, J. A., 2009. The fall of the Berlin wall: The revolutionary legacy of 1989. New York: Oxford University Press.

Fisher, M., 2009. Capitalist realism: Is there no alternative? United States: John Hunt Publishing.

Freud, S., 2014. ‘Civilized' Sexual Morality and Modern Nervous Illness. Read Books Ltd.

Gair, C., 2007. The American counterculture, 1945-1975. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Heath, J. and Potter, A., 2004. Nation of rebels: why counterculture became consumer culture. United States: Harper Collins Publishers.

Hayes, B., 2014. Hell on wheels: An illustrated history of outlaw motorcycle clubs. United States: Motorbooks International.

Herron, C. T., 2015. PSYCHEDELICS AND MUSIC [online]. Available from: http://www.newhellfireclub.co.uk/2015/07/psychedelics-and-music-salvia-by-ct.html [Accessed 14 March 2016].

History of Advertising Trust, 2014. Representing youth culture Levi Strauss and television advertising [online]. London: History of Advertising Trust. Available from: http://www.hatads.org.uk/documents/Education_resources/Youth%20Culture.pdf [Accessed 13 May 2016].

Holland, E. W., 2006. Baudelaire and Schizoanalysis: The Socio-Poetics of modernism. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

Holt, D. B. and Cameron, D., 2010. Cultural strategy: Using innovative ideologies to build breakthrough brands. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Holt, D. B. and Thompson, C. J., 2004. Man-of-action heroes: The pursuit of heroic masculinity in everyday consumption. Journal of Consumer Research, 31 (2), 425–440.

IMDb, 2014. The Desert Trail. IMDb.com, Inc [image, online]. Available from: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2534406656/tt0026273?ref_=ttmd_md_pv [Accessed 13 May 2016].

IMDb, 2016. Broadway to Cheyenne. IMDb.com, Inc [image, online]. Available from: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1902583040/tt0022921?ref_=tt_pv_md_3 [Accessed 13 May 2016].

Jameson, F, 1991. Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press.

Jameson, F., 2003. Future City. New Left Review, 21, 65–79.

Jamison, A. and Eyerman, R., 1994. Seeds of the sixties. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Kadagishvili, D., 2013. Metamodernism as we perceive it. Eurasian Multidisciplinary Forum, 2, 559–565.

Kant, I., 1922. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by F. Max Müller. 2nd ed. New York: The Macmillan Company.

Kilbourne, J., 2000. Can’t buy my love: How advertising changes the way we think and feel. New York: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group.

Levy, S., 1959. Symbols For Sale. Harvard Business Review, 37 (4), 117-124.

LS&Co., 1966. Rugged Pants For Rugged Guys. The Spokesman Review [online], 4 August 1966, 13. Available from: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=19660804&id=wjdWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=r-gDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4738,921571&hl=en [Accessed 12 March 2016].

LS&Co., 2014. Throwback Thursday: A look back at advertising at LS&Co. Levi Strauss & Co [online]. Available from: http://www.levistrauss.com/unzipped-blog/2014/07/throwback-thursday-a-look-back-at-advertising-at-lsco/ [Accessed 2 April 2016].

LS&Co., 2016a. History & Heritage. Levi Strauss & Co [online]. Available from: http://www.levi.com/GB/en_GB/about/history-heritage [Accessed 1 March 2016].

LS&Co., 2016b. The 501® Jean: Stories of an original | full documentary [video, online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R9cAoCyatA&nohtml5=False [Accessed 2 May 2016].

LS&Co., 2016c. The 501 Jeans: A Cultural Timeline [online]. Available from: http://www.levi.com/GB/en_GB/features/501-series/timeline [Accessed 13 February 2016].

Macleod, D., 2009. Levi’s go forth in America. The Inspiration Room [online]. Available from: http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2009/levis-go-forth-in-america/ [Accessed 13 May 2016].

McMillan, C., 2012. Žižek and communist strategy: On the disavowed foundations of global capitalism. United Kingdom: Edinburgh University Press.

Miller, D., 2010. Anthropology in blue jeans. American Ethnologist, 37 (3), 415–428.

Moen, P. and Roehling, P., 2004. The career mystique: Cracks in the American dream. United States: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

My Dinner With Andre, 1981. [film, DVD]. Directed by Louis Malle. USA: Saga Productions Inc.

Of a Kind, 2013. Go way back: Overalls. Of a Kind [online]. Available from: http://www.ofakind.com/stories/6714-go-way-back-overalls [Accessed 5 April 2016].

Petigny, A., 2009. The permissive society: America, 1941-1965. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

Pfaller, R., 2014. On The Pleasure Principle In Culture: Illusions Without Owners. Translated by Lisa Rosenblatt. London: Verso.

Rebel without a cause, 1955. [film, DVD]. Directed by Nicholas Ray. USA: Warner Bros.

Slotkin, R., 1998. Gunfighter nation: The myth of the frontier in twentieth-century America. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Solomon, M. R., 1986. Deep-Seated Materialism: the Case of Levi’s 501 Jeans. Advances in Consumer Research, 13, 619–622.

Stagecoach, 1939. [film, DVD]. Directed by John Ford. USA: Walter Wanger Productions.

Sullivan, G. B., 2014. Understanding collective pride and group identity: New directions in emotion theory, research and practice. United Kingdom: Psychology Press.

Telegraph, 2013. Meet James Curleigh, the new sheriff of Levi’s. Telegraph Fashion [online], 27 April 2013. Available from: http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG10016074/Meet-James-Curleigh-the-new-sheriff-of-Levis.html [Accessed 13 May 2016].

The Wild One, 1954. [film, DVD]. Directed by Laslo Benedek. USA: Stanley Kramer Productions.

Trotman, S., 2011. A Breakdown of the Levi’s 501 Jean [online]. Available from: https://www.wgsn.com/blogs/a-breakdown-of-the-levi’s-501-jean/ [Accessed 24 April 2016].

Veda Veda Veda, 2012. Veda Veda Veda [online]. Available from: http://vedavedaveda.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/vintage-levis-ads.html [Accessed 2 March 2016].

Vermeulen, T. and van den Akker, R., 2010. Notes on metamodernism. Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, 2.

Vintage 501s, 2010. Levi’s® Print Advertisements from days gone by [online]. Available from: https://vintage501s.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/levis®-print-advertisements-from-days-gone-by/ [Accessed 13 April 2016].

Weinstein, E. A. and Deutschberger, P., 1963. Some dimensions of Altercasting. Sociometry, 26 (4), 454.

Whyte, W. H., 2002. Organization Man: The Book That Defined a Generation. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.

Williamson, J., 1978. Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising. London: Marion Boyars.

Wilson, S., 1980. The man in the gray flannel suit. Cambridge, MA: Bentley Publishers.

Yafa, S., 2009. Cotton: The biography of a revolutionary fiber. United States: The Penguin Press.

Žižek, S., 1998. The Interpassive Subject. Centre Georges Pompidou, Traverses [online]. Available from: http://www.lacan.com/zizek-pompidou.htm [Accessed 21 February 2016].

Žižek, S., 2009. How to begin from the beginning. New Left Review, 57, 43–55.