Screen this MEF video as Black Friday, Cyber Monday & the commercial onslaught of the holiday season approach
With the madness of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and holiday hyperconsumption hurtling toward us, we highly recommend screening our recent release Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse in your classes.
In the film, media scholar and MEF executive director Sut Jhally explores the devastating social and environmental costs of runaway consumerism and rising levels of global consumption – placing special focus on the multibillion-dollar advertising industry’s relentless claim that corporate brands and consumer goods are the keys to human happiness.
Advertising at the Edge of the Apocalypse is a great tool for inspiring critical thinking about the images and messages of the commercial media landscape and the increasingly catastrophic consequences of unchecked consumer capitalism.
PRAISE FOR ADVERTISING AT THE EDGE OF THE APOCALYPSE
“Sut Jhally reminds us that the siren call of advertising has not been mitigated in the digital age — and that 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
“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 at 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.”
— John Bellamy Foster | Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon
“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
“Explains with riveting clarity the social power of advertising [and] calls us to take action to create a more sustainable society. His 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
“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.”
— Jeremy Williams | Co-author of The Economics of Arrival
“An extraordinary documentary. Should be seen by everyone concerned with environmental degradation and the social issues of inequality and poverty that plague the earth.”
— Fred Magdoff | Co-author of What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism
