One movie that gets to me is How to Get Ahead in Advertising. Its a darkly fantastical take on the advertising business. When I got into the Pub Design program I wasn't thinking about future job moves - but at the end of my school semesters, its becoming a pressing question. Is advertising the right move? In How To Get Ahead...the ad exec is corrupt in his zeal to sell the product, with no thought to the consumer or the quality or his own "selling out"that he actually grows another "evil" head on his face to do and say what he knows is sleaze. This other head grows and grows until it finally takes him over completely. Is advertising, the sell the product at all costs machine, a corrupting field?
My self-doubt and worry comes in thinking about my next moves. Is design the big fake? Does it ultimately pander to the client or sell something cheap or unnecessary? I have also been watching the AMC series MadMen and think to about advertising as the art of manipulation. The handsome ad exec in this says to up and coming secretary - "selling is you feeling something." I worry that the profession in most circumstances puts the proverbial lipstick on a pig. Is it just generating more stuff (paper, clutter, cards, signs) to sell more stuff.
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