Commodity Activism: Cultural Resistance in Neoliberal Times

Published by New York University Press 2012

Commodity Activism

Cultural Resistance in Neoliberal Times

Edited by: Roopali Mukherjee and Sarah Banet-Weiser

Volume 21 in the series Critical Cultural Communication

https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814763018.001.0001

Overview
Contents

About this book

Buying (RED) products—from Gap T-shirts to Apple—to fight AIDS.
Drinking a “Caring Cup” of coffee at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf to
support fair trade. Driving a Toyota Prius to fight global warming. All
these commonplace activities point to a central feature of contemporary
culture: the most common way we participate in social activism is by
buying something.

Roopali Mukherjee and Sarah Banet-Weiser have gathered an exemplary
group of scholars to explore this new landscape through a series of case
studies of “commodity activism.” Drawing from television, film,
consumer activist campaigns, and cultures of celebrity and corporate
patronage, the essays take up examples such as the Dove “Real Beauty”
campaign, sex positive retail activism, ABC’s Extreme Home Makeover, and
Angelina Jolie as multinational celebrity missionary.

Exploring the complexities embedded in contemporary political activism, Commodity Activism
reveals the workings of power and resistance as well as citizenship and
subjectivity in the neoliberal era. Refusing to simply position
politics in opposition to consumerism, this collection teases out the
relationships between material cultures and political subjectivities,
arguing that activism may itself be transforming into a branded
commodity.

Author / Editor information

Mukherjee Roopali :

Roopali Mukherjee is Associate Professor of Media Studies at the City University of New York, Queens College, and the author of The Racial Order of Things: Cultural Imaginaries of the Post-Soul Era.Banet-Weiser Sarah :

Sarah Banet-Weiser is Professor and Head of the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics. She is the author of four books, including Authentic™: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture (2012), which won the International Communication Association's Outstanding Book Award, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World: Beauty Pageants and National Identity (1999), Kids Rule! Nickelodeon and Consumer Citizenship (2007), and Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny (2018). She is the co-editor of Cable Visions: Television Beyond Broadcasting (2007) and Commodity Activism: Cultural Resistance in Neoliberal Times (2012), both available from NYU Press.Roopali Mukherjee (Editor)
Roopali Mukherjee is Associate Professor of Media Studies at the City University of New York, Queens College, and the author of The Racial Order of Things: Cultural Imaginaries of the Post-Soul Era.

Sarah Banet-Weiser (Editor)
Sarah Banet-Weiser is Professor and Head of the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics. She is the author of four books, including Authentic™: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture (2012), which won the International Communication Association's Outstanding Book Award, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World: Beauty Pageants and National Identity (1999), Kids Rule! Nickelodeon and Consumer Citizenship (2007), and Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny (2018). She is the co-editor of Cable Visions: Television Beyond Broadcasting (2007) and Commodity Activism: Cultural Resistance in Neoliberal Times (2012), both available from NYU Press.

Reviews

Commodity Activism will be out of interest to a wide range of scholars, including those focused on critical/consumer studies, American studies, media studies, and critical rhetorical studies. Any academic interested in exploring consumer politics, or contemporary trends in social activism, or in constituting social controversy, will find this text replete with starting points for future scholarship.

Commodity Activism is eminently useful. Mukherjee and Banet-Weisers collection is animportant intervention into what had become a tired debate about political agency and consumer culture. It is also a very timely anthology, helping us better understand the practices of a current generation ofactivists who recognize that the terrain upon which they struggle is not some idealized land of pure politics outside the influence of consumer culture, but instead, a challenging topography of brands and logos, style and story, celebrity and spectacle.

Nick Couldry,author of Why Voice Matters: Culture and Politics After Neoliberalism:
Commodity activism has a long history but never has its significance been more complex to unravel than today, when the boundaries and direction of political action are unclear, commercial forces mobilize consumers values to secure their emotional loyalty, and individual consumers hope their choices mean that & something is being done. Roopali Mukherjee and Sarah Banet-Weiser's smart, empirically rich and globally wide-ranging new collection provides us with very welcome coordinates in this difficult terrain.

J.R. Mitrano:
Without doubt this important collection of essays will contribute significantly to the new and growing field of 'critical consumer studies'.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Foreword Marita Sturken Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Commodity Activism in Neoliberal Times Sarah Banet-Weiser and Roopali Mukherjee Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part One: Brand, Culture, Action
1. Brand Me “Activist” Alison Hearn Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
2. “Free Self-Esteem Tools?” Brand Culture, Gender, and the Dove Real Beauty Campaign Sarah Banet-Weiser Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	39
3. Citizen Brand ABC and the Do Good Turn in US Television Laurie Ouellette Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
4. Good Housekeeping Green Products and Consumer Activism Jo Littler Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	76
Part Two: Celebrity, Commodity, Citizenship
5. Make It Right? Brad Pitt, Post-Katrina Rebuilding, and the Spectacularization of Disaster Kevin Fox Gotham Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	93
6. Diamonds (Are from Sierra Leone) Bling and the Promise of Consumer Citizenship Roopali Mukherjee Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	114
7. Salma Hayek’s Celebrity Activism Constructing Race, Ethnicity, and Gender as Mainstream Global Commodities Isabel Molina-Guzmán Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	134
8. Mother Angelina Hollywood Philanthropy Personified Alison Trope Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	154
9. “Fair Vanity” The Visual Culture of Humanitarianism in the Age of Commodity Activism Melissa M. Brough Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	174
Part Three: Community, Movements, Politics
10. Civic Fitness The Body Politics of Commodity Activism Samantha King Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
11. Eating for Change Josée Johnston and Kate Cairns Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	219
12. Changing the World One Orgasm at a Time Sex Positive Retail Activism Lynn Comella Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	240
13. Pay-for Culture Television Activism in a Neoliberal Digital Age John McMurria Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	254
14. Feeling Good While Buying Goods Promoting Commodity Activism to Latina Consumers Mari Castañeda Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	273
About the Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	293
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	297

Language: English
Publisher: New York University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;

eBook

Published: February 1, 2012
ISBN: 9780814763018