Sociological Images

The Winter 2010 Contexts photo essay “Seeing Switzerland: A Cross-Cultural Conversation” investigates the socially construction of Switzerland as an “idealized landscape” of gorgeous mountains, pretty meadows full of happy cows (Brown Swiss, of course!), and delicious chocolates.

As photographer and sociologist Douglas Harper says,

…the Swiss landscape is actually quite small, crisscrossed with electrical lines, and etched with startling towers…even the chocolate, as good as legend has it, is made largely from milk from outside Swiss borders.

Check out photos essay and Harper’s deconstruction of the mythology surrounding Switzerland; he does a better job than I ever could.

In the U.S., many little girls and boys are told that, if they don’t behave, they won’t get any presents on Christmas.  Sound like a significant threat?

Some cultures–parts of Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Slovenia, and Italy–have an anti-Santa Claus, Krampus.  Krampus is Santa’s sidekick; he’s his evil twin, if you will.  He stalks the streets hitting people with switches.  If a child is bad, Krampus will take the child’s gifts away.  If the child is awake Christmas Eve night, Krampus will take the child away!

Krampus:

Images found here, here, here, here, here, and here, via,

Max shoes advertises its sturdy laces with sexualized and racialized violence in this Swiss ad:

NEW! Penny R. sent in these ads for Bisazza tiles.  They were banned in England, but she saw them in a waiting room in the U.S. in a magazine called Wallpaper:Both via Copyranter (here and here).

Andrea G. sent this Swiss billboard in after posting about it on her blog:

In her post, she said,

It seems to be related to the the UEFA08 European Soccer Championship which is being hosted here in Switzerland this month. My off-the-cuff translation of “Frauen an den Ball” was “women on the ball”…But when I actually looked closer, I realized that “an” is being used in the accusative, which (in German) implies motion or movement from one place to another rather than fixed location, so the translation is closer to “women coming to the ball”. It turns out if you go to the website advertised, you can download a brochure (pdf) which includes several similar images and a several page summary of the rules of soccer (“das kleine ABC der Fussballregeln” = “the small ABCs of football rules”) apparently targeted towards women to bring them up to speed on the game so they can enjoy the games too. The intro text, which I can’t entirely translate, discusses surprising your man with your knowledge of football so you can talk with him (rather than avoiding the topic as in years past). It certainly seems targeted towards enhancing his pleasure of the games by having an enthusiastic female at his side (rather than a party-pooper who doesn’t care about the games).

Thanks for the post and your encouraging comments, Andrea!

An anonymous commenter sent us this link to an ad (found at copyranter) for an Indian restaurant:

How bizarre/creepy/awesome is that? I really don’t understand ads that sexualize foods. Maybe I’m weird, but looking at the food on my plate and thinking about it in all kinds of sexual positions just really doesn’t strike me as the most appetite-inducing situation. Really, when it comes to food, I don’t want the different meanings of “hot” confused. I would prefer my food is of a high temperature only.

I decided I found this one sufficiently odd to put it in its own post instead of adding it to an older one. I wanted to share the fantastic weirdness, dear reader.

This Australian ad for Lipton tea suggests that it’s mind clarifying qualities are so good that it could help even George Bush achieve the feat of naming all 50 states.

This Brazilian ad for Rolling Stone, featuring a picture of George W. Bush, reads: “We don’t show naked women to sell more. At the most, we show some asses.”

This Chinese Greenpeace ad, portraying Bush’s spin on global warming, reads: “Everyone’s entitled to an opinion. Voice yours at forum.greenpeace.org.”

This Chinese ad for an erasable pen reads: “Everyone makes mistakes.” 

In Malaysia, Bush is used to sell Smart cars.  Text: “Still looking for weapons of mass destruction.  Not smart.” 

Also in Malaysia, Amnesty International makes fun of Bush in their effort to inspire opposition to Guantanamo Bay.  “Write to him and help stop torture at Guantanamo Bay.  Remember, use simple words.”

This is a Mexican ad for a dog kennel.  “We don’t discriminate any kind of breed.”  (The source says that, in Mexico, like in the U.S., “dog” is a name for a bad person.)

 This ad for a Mexican newspaper reads: “Such a complex world needs a good explanation.”

This is an ad for the movie American Psycho in New Zealand.

In Portugal, playing war games (paint ball) is advertised as equivalent to playing George W. Bush.

This Swiss ad threatens, if you fall off your bicycle without a helmet, you may end up as dumb as George W. Bush.

These and more borrowed from here, found via adfreak.

Update: There have been some really nice points in the comments about how, in the process of making fun of Bush, we are also seeing the further stigmatization of ”people with developmental disabilities, brain injuries, and psychological diagnoses” (that from Penny in the comments).