The Meditation Zen Garden (a.k.a Woodland Mall)

The mall is a place of promise; it offers us everything we don’t already have and at SALE PRICE!!! That is how much the stores “love” us, “understand” us. They are willing to lower their prices in these hard times in order to fulfill our “needs”.  Of course, this is an exaggeration, as most products are overpriced in the first place. But that was the vibe I received while walking through the mall. I was always aware of the fact that stores tried to convince customers to buy their products through advertisement, but I never realized how subtle these advertisements can be, how much they appealed to a deeper human nature, and how they actually affected me.  It is so easy to get pulled into the consumerist mindset if you are not really paying attention. During my experience at the mall, I was stunned by how drawn I was to enter various stores, even if it was just to look at a product on display. Thankfully, with my newfound awareness, I was able to resist purchasing anything, but I was acutely aware of the profound effect that the stores had on me. I wanted to buy something, even though my intentions of coming to the mall were purely academic.

Looking at the motivation behind my unintentional desire to purchase goods, I would argue that the advertisements in the mall were all directed toward making me feel like I should buy the product now, before the sale/deal ended. I felt obligated to purchase a product because I felt like the store was doing me a favor by lowering the price, even though I know intellectually that is not the case. This effect of advertisements using the consumer to convince themselves to by the product was noted in the video, The Persuaders.

In addition, I was drawn to the setting and atmosphere the mall produced. Ironically enough, the mall was called Woodland, which automatically makes it sound like a natural and organic place, even though it is the exact opposite. The theme of the mall was leaves and trees (obviously) and there were multiple fake trees and artwork of leaves scattered frequently throughout the mall. This, combined with very high ceilings and skylights, gave me the feeling of being in a forest or garden, which was mentioned by Jon Pahl in the reading. The place had a zen-like vibe and reminded me of a place you would go to meditate. This directly connects the mall to a temple or church, which is the typical place one would go to find “peace”. However, the “peace” found at the mall is not genuine and is constantly “inspiring” you to buy into the consumerist mindset.

Many of the stores in the mall had created a connection with the consumer by providing for their need for satisfaction in a trustworthy, convenient  and routine manner. I observed this first-hand when I saw a girl run up to a store entrance and exclaim, “Ooo, I LOVE this store!” The use of the emotion ‘love’ indicates that the store has successfully created an emotional bond with the customer. I felt this bond with the store Barnes and Noble, which I effectively spent a half an hour perusing. This store has provided me with material that has satisfied my desire for convenient adventure and entertainment time and time again, thereby obtaining my loyalty.

The mall functions as a church by offering people a place to be in community with other people with a similar goal: consuming goods. However, I noticed there was very little interaction between other mall-visitors; in fact, everyone seemed to be in their own little bubble.  The mall may be offering us community with other people, but it is a false sense of community that results in no deeper relationship with other people (outside your own party, that is - going to the mall with friends is a different story).

Sneaky Food, Bacon Slides, and Melted Shoes

This afternoon I had the opportunity to hit up the Woodland Mall with a few of my friends. Despite the fact that I wasn't really hungry at the time, my first thought as I stepped through the door was "Wow, it smells really good in here. I want to buy something to eat from the conveniently located food vendors right in front of me." While I am still shocked by the 0.8 seconds it took me to want to buy something that I had absolutely no need for, I was luckily reminded of my purpose for our visit and did not fall prey to those tricksters. The Persuaders shed light on sellers who try to "give people what they want" which I think could more accurately be stated "give people clear access to what they didn't even realize they wanted." I had never realized how intentional malls are about appealing to all of our senses. I wanted to taste what I smelled, touch what looked interesting, and buy whatever "awesome" thing looked cool at the moment. (Don't worry, I resisted.)

While malls have never really felt "natural" to me, I was amused to see all of the greenery and trees and imitation sunlight that Pahl referred to in his work. He was totally right! What was most interesting to me regarding this topic, however, was the little playground towards the center of the mall that was seriously filled to the max with kids and their parents. Perhaps it was just the Minnesotan coming out in me, but I was dumbfounded that despite the fact that it was almost 60 degrees and sunny outside in the middle of January, these people were perfectly content playing on bacon-shaped slides in the mall rather than a real life-sized playground outside in the fresh air.

While I (barely) resisted the food, I must admit that I did buy a pair of tennis shoes. In my defense, I have been wearing a pair that kind of got melted at a campfire in November. (my feet were just so cold... whoops.) I checked out a few stores and found a pair on-sale at Payless, and they are purple too!!

I am so guilty of often devoting my loyalty to "stuff" rather than to God. Even more disheartening is the fact that I usually don't even realize I am doing it. However, this class is making it a lot easier for me to see the motivations behind my actions. I pray that God truly reshapes the whole of my imagination for the good of His Kingdom.

What Is It About the Mall?

After doing the readings and being at the mall, I experienced something I never have before. I felt extremely overwhelmed and it completely threw me off because the mall is somewhere I have always felt comfortable. Girls love to shop and spend money and I am definitely one of those girls, but after this event I felt there was something wrong with the mall.

Everything about every store invites you in. I noticed that their mission is to get us as close to their doors as possible so they can somehow convince us to come in. I watched as JC Penney gave away free food right in their door and all I think about was why they were doing that. Once they get us right where they want to, they have huge sale signs in bright colors with no other meaning than to get our attention. iI the documentary the Persuaders they talk about how these are simply to get more people to support them so that they can compete in the constant battle to survive in the buisness world. The signs manipulate us into thinking we need the things they are selling. While at the mall I had the sudden feeling that I needed to buy something, even though I came here not needed anything. I think this is because I know that this is what the mall is for, so I somehow think that my being here means I must have something to buy. In a way I felt this weird pressure to buy stuff just to fit in to the mall’s “purpose”. Looking around and seeing the food and people eating made me think that I was hungry even though I had just eaten. All of this made me realize that the mall has a strange effect on people and how they think.

         After reading Jon Pahl's article, I looked at the architecture and how the building was set up I noticed how bland the decorations and walls were that were not part of a store.  I knew this was to further draw attention on the stores and nothing else. He talks about how everything in the mall contributes to how we feel and now I see it too. Whether it is the water, plants, lighting, or sky light, we are influenced by them and they play a key role in controlling what we buy. Pahl explains that amazingly in his article but until I actually stopped and looked around I did not believe him. It was very easy to get turned around because everything kind of looks the same and either gets lost in the numerous people or the signs and advertisements. I found myself asking if they purposely wanted us to get turned around. The way each store functions as a church is that they are all fighting for our loyalty. They will do almost anything to get more people in, and sadly some churches do this too. All they want is more people to increase their income so they can build a bigger building with more features, but what they do not realize is that is a vicious circle they may never escape. With every day the church’s purpose becomes less and less about the kingdom and more about how rich they can get and how many people attend their service. This is not the way things were meant to be, or how churches were supposed to act. Malls were created for the same person, to trap people.

Christian Reformed Mall of America

The adventure to Woodland Mall, the center of the secular faith, was a very welcoming event. This institution knows its client through and through as you look at the variety of stores that the mall is made up of. There are the gaming stores for the guys and the clothing stores for all the ladies out there. Interestingly, on this visit to the mall, I noticed that all the very clothing stores were double or triple the size of all the regular stores. This only goes to prove that the mall knows its consumer; ie. The female audience. Just as “The Persuaders” so clearly showed in their movie, companies do research on their customer and all the other stores around the building site of the mall. In doing this they see what the customer is missing and needs, and finds and produces the product. It’s simply good business to know your audience.   In filling itself with a variety of products the mall works as a church. The church’s main goal is to draw people in from wherever they come from and sell them some truth or message that fits their world. The mall does this same thing. Malls understand that their main audience is girls and thus work hard on getting a variety of stores that would appeal to their female audience. Malls go even further in that they also have stores that appeal to males. Through the mall’s variety it appeals to multiple audiences just as a church tries to do. No business or church succeeds if its message is narrowed toward a single character type; well not for long anyway. Churches and malls need to understand the variety of their audience.

Also, as a side note, I agree with Pahl on his observation that malls get the customer's mind so jumbled that when they finally make their way out of the mall, they are unable to locate their vehicle. I noticed the reality of Pahl's comment when I had exited the mall and was at a lose to how close or how far my car had placed itself. Though, I mean, that's not saying all that much because I have an atrocious memory...

Group Film ~ America the Beautiful

A few days ago my group and I watched the  documentary called "America the Beautiful" a film by Daryl Roberts.

Here is a review of the documentary: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080508/REVIEWS/277581949/-1/REVIEWS01

Ebert summarizes the documentary, "It's about a culture "saturated with the perfect."I agree with this statement after watching the film. I don't have the best self- esteem, but after watching the film, I feel a lot better about myself than some of the skinny models interviewed. Gerren, the twelve year old model Roberts follows through her 1 year of success as a child in the major fashion industry. Gerren became wanted because of her age. But soon after she became thirteen, she learned her hips were too big for Milan. She no longer models and instead plays volleyball. It seems to me that the fashion industry is changing so much that they need different models every time a new show is getting ready to launch. The casting directors that once offered Gerren jobs, now say that they need someone smaller. Gerren strives for the best, but in the fashion industry good is never enough. Ebert emphasizes the small interviews with models and the statistic as the part of the documentary that really unsettles the viewers. I agree to that because every time a statistic came on the screen , the girls and I cringed and usually had comments about whatever the stat was.

I don't have the best self-esteem when it comes to my body but don't most people? Before watching the documentary, I thought I would be bombarded with images of happy self confident models, but instead they were all talk about losing more weight to get into certain shows. I now have a deeper appreciation of myself and the way God made me. I know I should be happy that He gave me a good life and need to thank God more often. I now want to pray for those in my community or around the world with the same self- esteem issues as me and the models in the film.

Woodland Mall Visit

This afternoon a group of my friends and I headed to Woodland Mall. We entered from the food court and right away I could see people buying and people selling. The bright signs of each vender were high above the glass cases full of food and cooks making orders. As we entered the part of the mall with the stores, we began to look around. The first thing I noticed was how bright it was inside. Pahl mentions in his chapter that the Mall of America did not have any windows and that was true of Woodland as well.  Like someone said in The Persuaders, there were a lot of green plants and vegetation in the middle of the all four of the oversized halls of the mall. Even thought there wasn't a fountain it still felt as if you were outside or under a canopy. The ceilings were high and open. Of the many stores in the mall the one that was the busiest was the Apple Store. Every time we went past I noticed a bunch of people in the store either playing with the samples or talking to a worker. It hit me that even though our world is getting older and older, the need for newer and newer technology or consumption grows stronger. The mall creates a place for people to belong and have meaning. They buy things to feel better, stick with the status quo or even just to buy something at a place where the whole idea is to buy something. Not to say that is wrong, but for some people they only buy something that they actually have use for or need. In fact, I needed some new shoes because I was getting rid of some of my older pairs that I don't where anymore. I needed shoes but I was able to control why I bought them. We went into other stores but there was not anything else that I really needed. Sure I wanted some other things and the stores did a good job enticing me but it wasn't worth it to me to buy something that I would use as much as a pair of shoes. The mall is like a church in the way that the different stores use tactics that they think will entice you into buying their product, like a church showing love, having community and being welcoming can give off a good impression of  Christianity or other religions. The mecca of consumerism is the mall, while the mecca of religion is the church. The similarities are interesting to think of as variables in an experiment. The church or the mall (consumerism)? "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money". Luke 16:13

Welcome to Woodland

From my observations, Woodland Mall fits many of the descriptions that Jon Pahl made in his chapter “The Shopping Mall as ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ Leading Nowhere.” The outside of the building was indeed windowless and a drab, boring beige-ish color. In the inside, there were lots of fake trees and skylights in the high ceilings to let in natural light, just like Pahl said. Overall, it created a very welcoming, comfortable, open, airy, clean, bright, natural ambiance. 

Almost all of the stores had large windows in the front and their products displayed right there in front in a very appealing way in order to entice and persuade shoppers to step inside and buy something. The other form of persuasion that was incredibly ubiquitous and apparent was sale signs. Nearly every store had at least one in their front windows or just inside the store. People love to shop and buy things, but they love low prices even more. There were also advertisements in the middle of the walkways, on the walls, and in other places. Like the “clutter” discussed in The Persuaders, Woodland Mall was also littered with such persuasive advertisements.

Before this class and this trip to the mall, I had never thought about or realized how shopping and consumerism truly are like a religion and how malls are like a “church.” Walking around the mall, it was incredibly apparent that the products that are sold there to consumers are meant to be worshipped by them. The displays, the windows, the colors, the advertisements; all of it is portrayed in such a happy and appealing way, it’s hard not to worship and feel like you not only should, but have to buy something. The shoes set on pedestals and the clothes worn by mannequins make it easy for the consumers to idolize the products, like it was a religion. Though I’m into shopping a whole lot, I’ve been to malls before and I’ve experienced this feeling, this need to buy something. So this time I resolved before I even set foot inside that I wasn’t going to buy something. I was determined not to give into the temptation. It wasn’t easy.  Multiple times I glanced into a store and thought something along the lines of: “Oh look! That dress/those boots/insert product here is super cute and it’s even on sale! I should go look if they have it in my size…” But I was able to refrain.

A mall truly is like a church. People go to the mall to buy things and worship shoes and clothes. People go to church to worship God. Families often go shopping together at malls (as I observed) and families usually go to church together. To further realize the similarities between the mall and a church, one only has to look at the map: the building itself is shaped like a cross, like many church sanctuaries. 

Other observations:

•  There were multiple nice, luxurious cars in the middle of the walkways

•  Kiosks selling a myriad of products were also in the middle of the walkways
• Two young women asked our ages and whether we’d be interested in doing any modeling
• A woman at a kiosk asked if we wanted a free hair demo
• Most stores cater to a certain demographic
• There was a children’s play area in which the play structures were shaped like food (banana, bacon, sausage, etc.)

• Malls allow people to be lazy: so many stores in one place; very convenient, easy; makes you want to buy more things because there are so many stores.
• It truly is disorienting. Because the mall is shaped like a cross, each hallway looks similar and you don’t remember where anything is and whether you’ve already been down that hall. It makes you keep walking around and around.
• The big department stores, which many people go to, are located at the ends of the halls, which means you have to walk by all the other stores to get there, and chances are you’ll walk in a few and buy something there, too.
• The mall was open from 10 am to 9 pm, just like Pahl said most malls are open.

Other pictures:

What is this advertising???

                         Fine art???

What store it this??? Oh wait, everyone knows what Hollister looks like so it doesn't even need a sign…

                   Some great t-shirts…


                     What an exceptional mall!!!

Group Film | Real Injun

On Sunday, January 13, we will be watching Real Injun at 221 Boer Hall at 7pm. Real Injun is a documentary tracing how the appearance of images of First Nations people in cinema affected how we understand or misunderstand their culture and history.

This is a link to a review from Mike Hale for the New York Times. He focuses more on how the different featured directors, actors and writers reminisce on their sins of old. Here on the other hand is a review by Joe Leydon for Variety Online focusing on the seriousness of the film and comments on the omission of the more violent scenes of those old movies.

Finally, here's a trailer to the documentary: