King C... Christ or Consumerism?

“I feel happy when I go to the mall because I get to buy the things that I need.” This is what someone said when I asked, “what do you feel when you go to the mall?” Change the words “mall” for “church” and “buy” with “heal” or “reflect” and you will see that indeed the mall and the consumerist system is trying to use our human need for God and twist it into a constant fulfillment of desire (The Persuaders). Obviously people cannot feel that they are being controlled by those media makers; in other words, they cannot realized they are inside “the Matrix”.

When I was at the mall I asked some people if they thought that there was anything religious about the mall, these were their answers:

-      - No, not that I can think off.

-     -  No

-      - No

-     -  No, you? (I answered yes, consumerism is a religion; he said, “interesting” )

-     -  No

-    -   No (after a while she changed her mind) yes, there is community

Do you see a common factor on these answers? Not a lot of people reflect on what they do, we do not ask “why?” We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented” (The Truman Show) because it is the most comfortable way to live, it is also the way society has been teaching us to live since the beings of society. That is precisely why we love the mall so much, because the guilt you are supposed to feel while you are not being able to cope with reality (although you should) is gone, cup-caked by the feeling that you need this and that because you need it you are making a smart choice by buying it. We think, “I am not being controlled, I make my own choices” but those “sale” signs are not really smart choices as we think, but more “you are naïve enough to fall for this.”

How does all of this related with the church? In every way, but churches are smart choices. At least in my hermeneutic situation, Christianity is our way to step out of “Seahaven” (The Truman Show). As Jon Pahl pointed out, malls use every characteristic about a church to give a “spiritual” atmosphere, a you-are-not-doing-anything-wrong-by-consuming-everyhting-you-like place to persuade buyers to join this religion. The church helps us be aware of King Consumerism to discover that real happiness can only be felt in Christ.

Obviously part of the problem is the society we live in; it has been slowly structured in a way that expects us to consume (for economic reasons, for social standards and for human “necessities”). But we have to remember we are society. 

Mauled by Woodland Mall

It’s amazing how much a mall is like a church. The minute I step in from the cold winter rain, 3 ladies in beautiful clothes usher me in, inviting me to find join the service in the holy sanctuary. They seem to accept and welcome anyone from any religion, culture, or race. As I walk in towards the center of the mall, bright colors from all directions capture my attention. I take a deep breath and an aroma of creativity and ingenuity cover me. Everything I need is in here. I run from one store to another admiring all the different characters I can buy. I shoot a glance at a pair of basketball shoes and suddenly I find myself shooting up towards the rim like Michael Jordan and slamming the ball into the hoop. I look at a tuxedo and imagine myself stepping out of a black limousine, walking down a red carpet in Hollywood and basking in the white flashing lights. I get to choose who I’m going to be by buying what the mall offers me - this is paradise. After a while, my legs start aching from all the walking and I find a comfortable seat in the center of the mall and I start typing.

It’s amazing how different a mall is from a church. The minute I enter the mall, 3 manikins in scandalous clothing look down at me with cold, emotionless eyes trying to convince me to join their religion. As I walk in, I am appalled at the sight of people mindlessly walking from one store to another in search of ways to please their insatiable desires for more. Every window displays all the different indulgences they have and I am disgusted. The mall reeks of selfishness and greed. People don’t need anything in the mall; they’re only here to satisfy their “limitless desires for commodities” (80 Pahl). It seems the architects placed the sofas in the center so even while you’re resting you can look at everything. The store clerks act interested in me and ask how I’m doing and how they can help. But I know most of them don’t care how I really am doing. They just want to swipe my plastic card and the only reason they want to help is to make me feel guilty if I leave without repaying them for the help they’ve given. They’re all wearing a mask, trying to sell me their fabricated source of happiness. Nauseated by everything, I sit on a hard wooden chair by Starbucks and write all these things.

The first paragraph describes what my initial feelings were as I entered the mall and the second paragraph describes what my initial thoughts were as I entered the mall. My mind was in the right place but my emotions were still trapped by the “religion of the market” as John Pahl puts it (67). I left without buying anything, because I wanted to show the mall that they could never define who I was by trying to manipulate me into buying who I fantasized to be.

Woodland Mall Revelations

          On our trip to the mall down the street, I noticed some things about Woodland Mall and malls in general that I might never have seen prior to our discussions of modern advertisement in class.  The first thing noticed, or rather didn't notice, was the outside of the mall.  While the interior of malls are colorful and inviting, the outside of the mall was quite unremarkable.  The insides of malls are designed to feel more comfortable than the outside to make it feel as if entering the mall is better than leaving. Upon entering the mall, I was met with the irresistible smells of the food court.  It probably didn't help that we decided to go to the mall right at lunchtime but in any case, I was famished by the end of the seemingly endless line of food options.   To my dismay, we skipped over the food court to get to the main attractions.  While the decor of the mall itself was comfortable, it was almost entirely white.  This gave the colorful stores the effect of a juicy fruit hanging from the tree, deliciously shiny and red contrasting to the unimportant remainder of the branch.  Inside of the stores was a blend of colors, textures, and sounds.  The blaring hip-hop inside of the clothing stores made it feel like a party, where I could forget all of life's worries and just let loose.  Once you've made your selections, the checkout counters are efficient, making the sale before you have any time to think twice. All of these observations were consistent with the descriptions and functions outlined by the article The Shopping Mall as "Stairway to Heaven" and the documentary "The Persuaders."

          While I was not surprised by most of the advertising gimmicks I was seeing, one store struck me in particular.  We walked into a journey's so one of my friends could look at shoes.  She had it narrowed down to two different colored pairs of Tom's but she wasn't sure which color she wanted.  One of the employees came over and began his pitch of each shoe's qualities.  "Typical advertising." I thought to myself until the employee off-handedly mentioned that for every pair of Tom's that was sold, a pair of shoes would be donated to a kid in a third-world country so if she bought both pairs, it would really be like buying four pairs, two of which would go to a needy child.  He then continued to paint a picture of these children in Nicaragua that would be forever grateful of this thoughtful american consumer.  While I do support the policy that Tom's Shoes will help people with their profits, I was intrigued to see how this policy could be used to exploit the lackadaisically "concerned" american consumer's personal convictions.  In The Persuaders one of the top advertisement advisers in the world showed how the most powerful advertisements are the ones that people subconsciously resonate with.  Whether it was his intention or not, the Journeys employee was showing the hidden religious aspects of the Woodland Mall and other shopping malls across america.

Woodland Mall Trip

It was another typical weekends. Students sought for a break from busy college life, and I could see many of them leaving to the mall. For Calvin students, or perhaps for most of us, shopping mall of today is not simply a place for buying goods; it is a culture, lifestyle, or perhaps even a salvation. We usually think, inside this gigantic windowless building, there is a place for rest, happiness, and lots of cool stuff that we ‘really’ need. This was true for me until I visited Woodland Mall on last weekend.

           As I stepped into JC Penny, the phrase, “30% off just for today” welcomed me. I don’t know why, but somehow those words, ‘just for today’ stirred up my desire to buy that almost brand new Levi’s jeans. For I did not take my wallet with me, I decided to move on. Then, I walked into one of the clothing stores that I frequently visit - Gap. Looking through the store, I saw a statement that says, “Share Orange!” displayed with new designed shirts and pants (of course, they were in orange). I thought the statements meant that we can join part of this ‘orange community’ of Gap when we buy those clothes. As Douglas Rushkoff, the director of ‘the Persuaders’, says, “Brand is an invitation for a lifelong culture”. These days, brands are not just about product symbols, but they are more of community, movement, and culture. What Gap was trying to do here was to give the customers a sense that they belong to Gap ‘community’ by selling their clothes. The fact that ‘you belong to community’ is important because people tends to define themselves by community that they are belonged to. And Douglas says that "this how the companies earn loyalty beyond reason from the customers. Usually, the customers do not recognize this, and unconsciously, they would keep purchase Gap more and more.

          

           John Pahl argues that the shopping mall has instilled the religious values and faith, and it became much powerful than the any other religions before. The mall advertises themselves with hope for prosperity, happiness, and unity in community. It even uses symbols to uphold these values. For instance, in the mall, almost all the lights were natural lights. These lights were placed so that the products stood out more prominently than it really is. In religion, light is a symbol of “our primary experience of energy”, as John puts it. Without these lights, the companies won’t be able to draw as much customers as it could before. Also, what I noticed about Macy’s and JC Penny was that they brought natural environment inside the mall. Starbucks, which was at the center of the mall, was surrounded by the trees and flowers on open space where there were no doors or walls. It seemed to me that Starbucks intended to appeal to the customers about their atmosphere where there is full of life, and also open space seemed to represents welcoming invitations to the customers. These ‘growing things’, such as bushes, trees, and flower, usually represents life in many religions, and the mall has brought these ideas to the mall to set intimate and friendly atmosphere. John also states that these ‘growing things’ represents life that the mall could bring to the customers.

The mall has succeeded in injecting these values at the center of people’s heart. Now, people are more drawn to natural lights and neon lights than the light that truly shines darkness of this world. They put their hope in the advertisement rather than in Jesus. They are eager to join Gap community, Apple community, rather than to unite as one body of Church. The trip to Woodland Mall made me ponder deeply about the real truth and hope that we should hold onto.

Love = Disadvantage?

Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia

            This episode of the British series, “Sherlock” was about Sherlock Holmes and his good friend, John Watson trying to crack the passcode of a phone that belongs to a woman whom Sherlock seems to have an interest in. What Sherlock doesn’t realize however, is that the phone is not only wanted by the British government, but also by the American government.

            John Watson served in the British army as a doctor in Afghanistan before he met Sherlock Holmes, his housemate. Through Watson’s relationship with Sherlock’s brother, we get the message that life isn’t about money (Sherlock’s brother, a member of the British Parliament offered a lot of money to Watson to keep an eye on Sherlock and report if anything out of the ordinary was happening, but Watson refused). This artifact seems to say that life isn’t about how much money you have or how much you own, but rather about doing what you love.

            Sherlock Holmes is portrayed as an extreme post-modernist. Near the beginning of the episode, as Sherlock Holmes and John Watson are looking for more cases to solve, Sherlock says this to one of his clients, “Tell us from the start, and don’t be boring.” The phrase “don’t be boring” didn’t stand out at first, but the more I thought about it the clearer it became that Sherlock is constantly on the search for something new and not boring since redemption to Sherlock is found in solving complex problems.

            Sherlock Holmes is very cynical and pessimistic about relationships. He thinks love is a hindrance to work. However in this episode, Sherlock Holmes meets a woman who makes Holmes question his view on love. Near the end when it seems the woman has won in keeping the passcode a secret, Sherlock suddenly connects the dots and says, “Love is a dangerous disadvantage.” Because of the woman’s love for him, Sherlock Holmes figured out the passcode had to do something with him only affirming his pessimistic view on love. In this episode, love is portrayed as a burden through Sherlock and a false hope through failed relationships Watson has with different girls. However, the last scene of the episode shows Sherlock Holmes secretly saving “the woman“ who is about to be executed, which begs a few questions.

        1.)  What is it about love that is so frustrating yet appealing?

        2.)  Is love a dangerous disadvantage?

Woodland Mall Adventures

Woodland Mall

                We arrived at the mall very aware and looking for different things that could have related to what we had seen in The Persuaders or from the reading, but after some time the task was almost forgotten. In the beginning I was looking for more advertisements to pop up or for me to notice if there were any smart ploys that the mall had, but nothing really stuck out. Also from the Pahl reading I remembered what he said about fountains in malls and was hoping to find one in Woodland, but there wasn’t one. However in Woodland I noticed how there are a lot of places to sit outside of the shops. All these sitting areas force people to look at stores and eventually enter these shops so that something is being bought. Thinking back to as we walked around to different shops and went to ones that appealed to us, I transitioned to become a part of the mall and a part of all the people walking around and shopping. I did buy a pair of jeans because my closet was lacking some. However I realized a part of why I bought it was because it was on sale and felt as though I were saving money. In actuality I am just contributing to the mall religion.

                The mall is a place that people go to usually feel better when they purchase things. Everyone is shopping because everyone else is shopping and this adds on to the mall religion. There is no escape of the consumerism. A lot of people that are at the mall feel as though it is a sanctuary, a place to get away and relieve stress by shopping. I have to admit that I have felt like that before, but thankfully I no longer rely on the mall for satisfaction. It is weird thinking of the mall as a type of “church”, but it really could be. People want to be a part of something, so why not at the mall. We really are becoming immune to advertisements and even though their effect seems to have diminished, we actually do pay attention to them. There are huge posters put throughout to mall that interchange to show even more advertisements. Malls are becoming such a normalcy for people’s lives and contributing greatly to our instant satisfaction. There seems to be no escape.

Woodland Mall Awakening

Mall will never be the same place for me ever again. After doing the reading and watching the movie, I see the different faults and the elements that were talked about. For this weekend, I was able to take a trip to Woodland Mall and from the start, before I got into the building; I was able to notice something. There were multiple entrances to the mall. An individual could enter the mall from any door that they chose and wanted. I felt that this was trying to point out that the mall was welcoming everyone from everywhere. It did not matter where you came, the mall was welcoming. Pahl talked about how he was delighted to find a parking spot near the entrance. Maybe the malls purposely have multiple entrances so that the people feel “delighted” when they park near an entrance. This idea is pretty genius, makes the consumers happy and satisfied even before they enter the mall.  As I walked in through the double doors, the first thing I noticed was the lights. It was bright, now I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed it before but it was bright. Woodland Mall has this center where it is even brighter and there is Starbucks. What better way to warm up from this cold Michigan weather in the bright light and delicious hot coffee. I probably could have sat there with my friends for the whole day because it was that comfortable, in the mall!  Then as I was thinking in that bright center in the mall, I thought about Pahl. The Mall of America had an amusement park in the center and Woodland has a Starbucks. I probably could have spent the whole week at the Mall of America. The mall seems like a fun place to be and hang out. Knowing that we had a mission in mind and a post to upload, we went through the mall. I entered JC Penny and saw something about the way that the things were set up. First, the glass cases where it holds jewelry and accessories, it was bright. What might seem like a normal necklace, the bright light made it seem something out of the ordinary.  Another thing I noticed was that the aisles or the space between the clothes was very narrow. This only allowed one person at a time to look at the item. I believe this is so that the person is not interfered by outer influence and the decision to buy the item. Is it me or does the mall smell like heaven. When you get near the food court, you can smell the delicious food and when you walk into the different shops, you smell the perfume and the different fragrances. The mall is appealing to all five senses. In a mall you see the bright lights, hear the waters of the fountains, smell the food and fragrances fell the items, and eat the foods from the food court. Mall acts as one of the very few things that appeal to all the five senses. Maybe that is the reason why we come so often and can’t seem to stop coming. During my trip to the mall, I had actually planned to buy a pair of pants but chose not to. It made me feel like I was giving into the empire. I then thought about whether I really needed the pants or not but I really didn’t. I do have a pair of black pants but I just wanted another pair and I don’t know what made me think that I needed another pair. At that moment, I was scared that I was turning into the people that the big companies wanted. I was basically Rheanne, I wanted to buy something for no apparent reason. The mall competes for my loyalty like a church. Churches want people to come to the worships while the mall wants people to come and buy. I was ashamed of myself because I felt like I was putting more of an importance on buying than God. This trip to the mall helped me self evaluate me and what I put as more important. These ads may not seem to affect us but they do affect us in a way that we can’t detect it on our radar. There is a reason why these different companies bring in so many talented individuals to help create ads. In the movie persuader, the airline company, Song, was going overboard. They did not want people to just buy but to give their loyalty. What we might see as some simple ad and designs, the advertisers see it as a complex way of luring us into their trap. It’s amazing how I just slightly skim the top of consumerism and how much aware I become of my surroundings.