Culture Jamming

“Culture jamming is an intriguing form of political communication that has emerged in response to the commercial isolation of public life”
To me, a culture jam is like a metaphor: two or more seemingly unrelated things put together in an effort to show a comparison between the two. Culture jams can be seen in many different forms, such as billboards, videos, music, or posters.
An example I found is shown below. It is a culture jam in music video form that was posted on youtube. It features the song “I’m too sexy” by Right Said Fred. The beginning of the video features popular beauty product slogans, it then goes on the many different pictures and video clips of different models and celebrities. It then contrasts these images with normal women, and their struggle to achieve this. The final picture shows a severely anorexic girl and the L’oreal slogan “Because you’re worth it.”
When L’oreal uses this slogan, it is accompanied by a beautiful model that their target audience would envy. By doing this, women who strive for the model’s Photoshopped perfection will buy L’oreal products. By accompanying the slogan with a picture of an anorexic girl, it questions L’oreal’s ethics. It suggests that L’oreal expects every woman to conform to that image, and that they are aware of the repercussions of their advertisements.

Works Cited
“Real Beauty” [Video]. 25 March 2007. 20 November 2008. .