“Miller High Life: Pleasure for Everyone!” TIME magazine (May 8, 1965), p. 45.
In this advertisement for Miller High Life, four older white men are enjoying a beer while they take a break from golfing. The image is accompanied by the caption, “Pleasure for everyone!”
The men are gathered closely around a table: their uniform appearance and the intimacy insinuated by their overlapping figures, suggests that the group is closed to outsiders. Their bodies form a kind of wall that acts to keep others out of their gathering and away from the “High Life” which is guarded at the center of their circle. Their backs face everywhere, except the viewer. While there is a space at the table for the viewer to “join” them, they do not engage the reader with their gazes. The viewer is at once privileged to be a part of their meeting, but looking at the image offers a certain sense of voyeurism, like gazing at something unattainable.
This group of men is enjoying a golden beverage; the “High Life.” Everyone in the photograph is a white man, and golf is also traditionally a country club, white man’s game. Thus, the scenario is from a man space, from a boys-club, from the clubhouse, from the country club. These are all elite spaces, where only special, privileged people congregate. To join them and partake in the “High Life,” one would need to be a part of this group. The image demonstrates the social situation at the beginning of the 1960’s; the “high life” was only available to wealthy white men.
Yet, the caption insists “Pleasure for everyone” (emphasis added). In this situation, “everyone” refers to older white men of the upper-middle-class. The four men are taking a break together; this image emphasizes their cohesiveness and unity as a group.
The scene maintains the one-narrative thrust which carried over from the 1950’s, and illustrates the particular Americanism championed in the early Cold War period, that of the elite, governing group.
“Campari: 9 out of every 10,000 Americans prefer Campari.” The New Yorker (July 9, 1979), back cover.
In this advertisement for Campari, nine photos of consumers accompany a studio shot of a full glass and bottle of Campari. The nine “Americans” are pictured individually, each followed by their own testimony, or “Campari Quip.” By picturing the Campari drinkers separately, this advertisement does not attempt to construct a prototypic scenario in which people should enjoy the product, as with the ad for Miller High Life. Since each consumer is pictured with hir “Campari Quip,” the advertisement gives voice to those who are pictured, presenting many narratives.
Also, unlike the previous picture, the people look directly at the viewer, to engage hir and include hir in the conversation about Campari. The advertisement even invites Campari drinkers to send in their own snapshot and “Campari Quip.”
This advertisement, which comes after the Rights Revolution of the 1960’s, reflects the push for individual rights, and the rights of individuals to participate in consumer life. Furthermore, the statistic offered–9 out of every 10,000–is not a statistic that defines a majority but instead a very, very small minority, .0009%. This advertisement demonstrates the movement during and after the 1960’s to recognize minority groups or groups who were previously marginalized as meaningful members of American society.
This advertisement shows a success of the Women’s Liberation Movement. In the earlier image, not only are there no women, but there is no possibility that a woman could join that group. In the second advertisement, of the nine people pictured, six of them are women. Their images fall under the heading of “Americans.” Now we see that women are recognized as representative Americans. As opposed to the America proposed in the first image, women are now included in a term like “everyone.” This advertisement is from 1979, seven years after the Equal Rights Amendment was introduced.
However, neither image includes African Americans or any other racial minority. Despite the passage of the Civil Rights Act (1964)–as opposed to the death of the Equal Rights Amendment (1972-1982)–black Americans are still excluded from constructions of “Americans” and “everyone.” While I will maintain that the second image shows a shift from the focus on an archetypal and idyllic Americanism to recognition of the multifacetedness of the American experience as it is lived by individuals, the scope of the American remained incredibly small. While the advertisement does recognize and make use of the societal recognition of multiple narratives, it chooses to give voice only to the white narrative.
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