Values of the Mall

The values espoused by the mall are no secret, rather, their discovery takes only a glance from a wary eye. Luckily for the mall, wary eyes are few and far between; most travlers are content to simply "shop," leaving themselves wide open to manipulation great and small. In Jon Pahl's words, the casual shoppers "betray a willingness to conform to marketed symbols of 'beauty' or marketed commodities as signs of the 'good' life" (from Shopping Malls and Other Sacred Spaces, pg. 67). That good life is luxurious: it prefers plush leather chairs to benches (even cushioned ones) that could double the capacity of "sitting areas." A bench would certainly suffice for a shopper who needs to tie their shoe or just rest a moment, but for those who desire to sit and absorb the atmosphere of the "sacred space," a bench just will not do. Indeed, the mall seems outfitted with precisely the right furnishings for extended visits: a playground, a food court, even an ATM.

A quick tour through a couple shops reveals an entire subculture of t-shirts. Here, my research partner holds up a preteen girl's shirt which advocates for an issue too complex for any young girl to comprehend. Other shirts we ran into included a boy's ad for Avatar and a teen girl's shirt declaring "Love bites."

As if shirts weren't enough, Gap kept right on chugging with a pair of socks designed for boys. If older teens want to go around wearing skulls as a sign of rebellion, that's fine with me, but I'm a little afraid of boy's socks emblazened with a skull against a camoflauge background. Then again, maybe they're just trying to tell kids that war is hell. Doubt it.


Gap, unwilling to leave their offenses to commercials or kids, framed this poster above a collection of army style pants for men. Selling a pair of pants as a way to commemorate veterans is one thing, but calling the veterans "the originals" and your pants "the original made new" seems not only arrogant but also vulgar. Here are men who put their lives on the line for a nation now enslaved not to facism but to consumerism...and Gap tries to celebrate them by screaming "REMIX!"


This pretty much speaks for itself. Pedestaled in front of a store obsessed with letting girls go wild, complete with lingerie in exotic animal-skin patterns, this seems even more offensive. But hey, at least we now know that this nameless model has a monopoly on sexy..which, if she did, would put Victoria's Secret out of business, wouldn't it? I guess bankruptcy would put Victoria's back into secret and out of the public eye...darn.

Hallmark's sentimentality would be a topic for another day. However, I couldn't help but wonder when I looked at this gift bag what exactly was so evil about getting old. I mean, sure, everybody seems to want the fountain of youth and maybe that has something to do with broken shalom but ultimately shouldn't we celebrate the seasons of life, rather than positing YOUTH as sovreign? Who said youth was the best? Well, young designers for one...

Finally ready to go, even the flora of the mall couldn't help taking a shot at me. Some people think plants are there for decoration, but now I know the truth: they are snares to stop the unfaithful from leaving the mall before closing time (as long as they have a Calvin lanyard at least). Sorry, oh mall, but I did escape in the end (though not before being shocked to learn that Subway wouldn't give me a complementary glass of water...somehow the 5-dollar footlong song doesn't work the same when you add "PLUS DRINK" to the end of the refrain...).