The Century of the Self

The Century of the Self was a great documentary that followed the role of Freud's research and findings in the age of advertising. He helped advertisers discover how to make people want things they did not need through stimuli and latent feelings and ideas based on instinctual drives in all of us.

One of the more interesting pieces I liked was the advertising campaign attempting to get women to smoke. The idea that an advertisement, something inane and ultimately meaningless, could convince women and men, for that matter, that women were capable of smoking cigarettes is incredible. Even though it was considered almost taboo for women to smoke at that time, this advertising campaign showed women if they smoked, they were more free and independent. Of course, that was not true, but by linking emotion and want to an object, they had created a fool proof idea that, unfortunately, worked. Edward Bernays was behind this and found that appealing to the emotional side of humanity is far more effective than appealing to the intelligent side.

In the early 1900's, the idea of women smoking was detestable and, frankly, gross. But with this ingenius ad campaign, suddenly it was okay. In fact, it was better than okay! Of course, the ad campaign wasn't the only reason. The women's fight for suffrage and equal rights as men further pushed the idea that if men can smoke, women can, too. The women portrayed in these ads were independent and strong, like Amelia Earhart, the pinnacles of the ideal free American woman.

Today, the idea that women should not smoke or should not be seen smoking is still a common one, particularly in countries where women do not hold high places in their societies, such as in Gaza where for a short time women were not allowed to smoke in public.