Advertising and Identity Politics

Is there a link between advertising and identity politics? This ad for a 1958 Edsel was posted on a Usenet newsgroup recently. I read it several times, and that question and some tangential thoughts developed.

The text is fascinating. The italicised arrived tell the reader that it’s not just about pulling up in front of the house. The car is a “status symbol”, a phrase much used in the 1950s to deprecate advertising. But some 60 years on, the text looks like it’s about more than mere status. It’s about achieving an identity, that of a successful businessman. It’s about being recognised as a person of importance. It’s about getting the respect the Edsel owner clearly deserves.

It begins by touting the car as a signal of status and identity: Other drivers spot that classic vertical grill a block away. Whomever the Edsel owner encounters will treat him as he deserves.

The neighbours will admit you deserve respect, too: And parked in front of your home, your Edsel always gets even more attention. It says you chose elegant styling... And it all comes at the lowest cost of the medium-priced cars. Status at a bargain, which stamps the buyer as a canny money manager besides all his other virtues.

Advertising always tells a story. This ad tells the story of a successful white middle-class man, someone who has transformed himself from whatever he was before he started working towards this day. The day he drives up in a brand new red two-door hard-top Edsel in front of his a ranch style home, his good-looking wife, his two charming children. He’s wearing a suit, white shirt and tie, and a hat. He has arrived, he’s achieved the American Dream.

That dream doesn’t consist of house, car, clothes, or other goods. Those are mere signs and symbols of what actually matter: status, identity, privilege. By linking the Edsel to success, the ad assumes the values that prompt the striving for success. By taking those values for granted, the ad creates an assumption of shared values. That in turn reinforces those values. The central value is being somebody.

I think the link to identity politics is obvious. Identity politics is about being respected. More, it’s about being accepted as worthy of respect, as deserving acknowledgment, as having one’s proper place in society. It’s about having the same status as everyone else. It’s about being somebody instead of being ignored, deprecated, disrespected. It’s about deserving to achieve the American Dream.