Such a baseline premise leads to impoverished analysis. Both Bennett and Frank acknowledge that relative general affluence in postwar America gave rise to advertising that seeks to create symbolic value for products. But why then does rebellion, like sex, seemingly sell so well in an American context? Oddly, neither Bennett nor Frank seems particularly interested in casting back into pre-1960s history for answers as to why rule-breaking and individualism might be dominant motifs, despite a long and popular American tradition of nonconformity that includes such events and figures as Roger Williams, the Antinomian Crisis, the American Revolution, Henry David Thoreau, John Brown, the Civil War, and women suffragists (one might add that Ben Franklin's autobiography, one of the great early milestones of our national literature, is explicitly a blueprint for individual fulfillment via rule breaking). Similarly, Bennett never wonders why, if it is symbolic rejection of social mores that sells records, Cannibal Corpse's 1994 ditty, "Stripped, Raped, and Strangled" --cited by Bennett as representative of today's hit parade--didn't actually top the charts.
From a top-down perspective the actual commercial fate of any product is less important than its mere existence. Ultimately, such an approach to culture relies too heavily on the intentions of the producers (an especially unwise approach when dealing with ad men), cutting out the fuller social context. Just as the final selling price of a good or service is not set by producer fiat, neither are psychic value and meaning solely a function of producer intent. These things are subject to intense, ongoing negotiations between buyer and seller, producer and consumer, author and reader; their ultimate meaning is hashed out in the no man's land of the commercial, intellectual, and emotional marketplaces.
For example, are diners who chow down on Pizza Hut's "Edge" pizza--the ads for which insist consumers "Take it to the edge!"--vicariously indulging in an extreme sport or act of moral subversion? Or do they eat the pie--or choose not to--for other reasons altogether? What role does the pizza's actual physical attributes--toppings, sauce, crust, etc.--play? Precisely on what psychic terms, say, do people "do" Mountain Dew? Do consumers identify with its skateboard-thrashing, snowboard-riding shills? Do some retrograde drinkers recall its old hillbilly image and guzzle it as an homage to simpler times? How important to its market is its day-glo color and higher-than-average caffeine and sugar content?
Despite corporate America's occasional bravado regarding its advertising and marketing prowess, its claims either to know what people want or to make people want what it has to sell, these kinds of questions are not necessarily answerable with any certainty. Are consumer focus groups representative? Can the individuals in them articulate why they choose one product over another? What is the best relationship between an ad image and the product it promotes? Why do seemingly perfectly situated products flop? And seemingly bad ones succeed? Why do modes of general cultural discourse change, what do they really mean at any given point, and is there any way to predict, much less direct, the next shift?
These are indeed difficult questions--and to the extent that they locate power, meaning, and value outside of elites who might evaluate them, manage them, and control them, they are unlikely to be addressed fully by either right-wing or left-wing cultural critics.
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