The Culture Jammer's Video
The Media Foundation. 1993. $35
Length: 12 minutes
Audience: Junior High, High School, Post-Secondary
Topics: media activism
Media activism on the move: that's the aim behind The Culture Jammer's Video and the Media Foundation, the organization responsible for its production. This collection of socially responsible uncommercials tackles issues such as television addiction, television violence, pollution, consumerism, media awareness, the national debt, North American social laziness, and some of the hazards of TV.
To get its messages across, the film uses the compressed form and vividly fragmented style of many television commercials - leavened with wit and humour. Viewers (particularly students) will appreciate the video's visually arresting style, and its message that television turns its viewers into mere "products" for marketers. More importantly, the film teaches the message that concerned citizens can use television to combatits own influence and to support their causes. Besides trying to get these "subvertisements" onto their local TV stations, students may be stimulated to produce their own commercials on subjects of importance to them.
The Culture Jammer's Video can be ordered online from the Adbusters Web site.
