Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic: The Aesthetics of Consumerism (1st ed.)

Citation

Reinecke Flynn, L. (2001), "Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic: The Aesthetics of Consumerism (1st ed.)", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 18 No. 3, pp. 276-288. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcm.2001.18.3.276.1

Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic: The Aesthetics of Consumerism is a brief selection of essays on the iconography of consumption. The author, Daniel Harris, focuses on the evolution of the symbols that define the culture of modern American consumption. The result is a unique and skewering take on both consumers and purveyors.

One warning – Harris does not write in an academic manner; rather the book reads like a series of essays one might find in a magazine like The New Yorker. They are witty and nearly catty in tone. One more caveat – from his position as a rather arch New Yorker, Harris can be condescending. He managed to insult both the homes of this reviewer’s alma mater, Tuscaloosa, Alabama and present employer Tallahassee, Florida. I guess southern towns with long, Native American names are easy targets as backwaters. But, perhaps wickedly clever New Yorkers are not superior in every way, as Mr Harris mistakenly identified the photographer, William Wegman’s dog/subjects as mastiffs rather than the weimaraners everyone else knows they are.

Still, his short pieces are valuable for both consumer behavior scholars and marketing communication or advertising specialists, and they make for entertaining reading.

The essays focus on the messages, or real meanings, behind such consumption‐related communication vehicles as “cuteness,” “the romantic,” “deliciousness,” “zaniness,” “the natural,” and “glamorousness.” These icons and four others are the titles of the book’s ten essay chapters, each covering the verbal and visual cues that make up the modern message that has developed around each icon.

The first essay is on “cuteness.” This is arguably the most cohesive chapter. In it Mr Harris describes cuteness as evolving out of the human consumer’s need to feel superior through pity for the “cute thing.” He reinterprets items eliciting the, “awwww, isn’t that cute,” reaction as malformed, stunted, and robbed of any sort of power of their own. Thus, teddy bears have no teeth, claws, or even paws, and “Precious Moments” dolls have exaggerated eyes and bodies that are too small. Cute things are pitiful and call out to be befriended, or bought. Harris sees the cute as “exaggerating the vast discrepancies of power” (p. 11). Thus, such “cute” activities like anthropomorphizing animals by dressing them in human clothes or even dressing children in adult‐styled clothing is a way of emphasizing the inferior position of the pet or the child. Perhaps the best argument that cute reinforces our feelings of superiority is the trend towards the “anti‐cute.” Reality is harsh and getting harsher all the time, and that has brought about a backlash against the cute. Bart Simpson is Harris’ poster child for this reaction to cuteness. Not the cuddly, cute child, Bart is “the petulant and demanding brat who disdains the sacrosanct laws of property ownership, gleefully annihilating cuisinarts and microwaves as he mows a broad swath of destruction through the household’s inner sanctum” (p. 19). Not cute, not cute at all.

Harris’ essay on deliciousness is another of particular interest to marketing communication specialists. He observes that the marketing of food as “delicious” has evolved into something of a circular progression. As electricity, tin cans, and indoor plumbing removed much of the drudgery of being a housewife, modern technology also brought in an era of technological, processed, unattractive food. Appetizing meals were easily prepared from the can or from the freezer. In the 1970s so many women joined the workforce and cooked less and less that a backlash against “modern processed” food developed. Magazines like Bon Appetit, Gourmet, and more recently, Martha Stewart Living promulgate food that is both delicious and beautiful but requires hours of preparation and long lists of exotic ingredients.

The magazines encourage the overworked home chef to strive to achieve impossibly perfect food, which is real and not prepared. Along with the desire for beautiful food came the need to actually photograph it for magazine spreads and advertisements. Close ups and bright lights necessitate the creation of artificial food displays for delicious‐looking photographs. Harris points out the irony that, in the consumer’s quest for greater and greater gastronomical delights, more and more toxic fixatives are needed for its adequately sumptuous display. The artifice that makes the food look so good also renders it inedible. Deliciousness has been removed from our taste buds and relegated to our eyes. And, at the same time as the quest for perfect, exotic food is at its zenith, so is consumption of fast and chain restaurant produced food.

The essay on “glamorousness” will be of particular interest to anyone who studies the portrayal of women in the media. Harris gives the reader an interesting history of the use of women and the female form in general to sell fashion and beauty products. He argues that the portrayal of glamour has moved from faceless drawings where mood was conveyed by the pose of the body to a focus on the face. The message has evolved from one of faceless donning of the fashion uniform of the day to encouragement to become a rebel, an outcast like the beautiful face we see looking us in the eye from the glossy magazine page. If we ordinary mortals buy and use the cosmetics or clothing offered, we too can achieve the “irreducible singularity, the allure, the cachet of the model, the one‐of‐a‐kind art object whose value inheres in its scarcity” (p. 224). Harris’s apt and skewering descriptions of glamour advertising take on the industry from a new perspective, a perspective not borne of feminism. “Glamorousness” may be the most refreshing essay in the book.

The author makes no real attempt to discuss the psychological underpinnings of the phenomena he describes. Still, bringing the psychologist’s point‐of‐view to bear on consumer communication and behavior could help to tie the somewhat disparate essays together. For instance, increasing mechanization and its attendant loss of control, distaste for the “earthiness” of bodily functions, and the need for individuality in a world of mass everything are all the subjects of this collection of essays and also of more psychologically‐based consumer behavior studies.

On the whole, Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic: The Aesthetics of Consumerism is a worthwhile read for both managers and academics. For managers it provides a very different point of view on what consumers take away from the marketplace. It can give the manager insight into how the iconic “coin of the realm” functions in the consumer’s psyche. For academics, especially those who study the effects of advertising, the book gives a historical perspective of how the culture of advertising images has developed and how it has impacted the modern, American consuming lifestyle. Daniel Harris has given the marketing profession valuable insights into themselves.