Yes, the picture is blurry: last night I had my pencam set to “macro” as I strolled around the Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua, NH. I was shopping for reflective images, but when I saw through a glass window this photographer doing her damnedest to get Baby to smile for the camera, I couldn’t help myself. If shopping malls are monuments to Conspicuous Consumption, portrait studios are symbols of Parental Projection. As grown-ups hastening toward mortality, we want to see ourselves reflected in the fresh-eyed innocence of our children. Just as our parents took photos of us and their parents took photos of them, we take photos of our children as a way of encapsulating our deepest hopes for the future: our desire that Junior will become all that we never managed to be.
Since I don’t have children of my own, I seek my reflection not in the eyes of youth but in the sheen of shopwares: the trinkets and tchotchkes of Capitalist Culture.
Stores in general and shopping malls in particular say a great deal about what we want to value as a culture. In an age when stay-at-home Moms and Dads are an increasingly endangered breed, for instance, our stores are filled with shiny kitchen gadgets. Maybe if I buy the latest kitchen appliances, I can see myself as Suzy Homemaker even if I rarely have the time to venture into my kitchen?
Judging from what stocks our store shelves, we as a culture are obsessed with style, fashion, and beauty. In addition to the myriad mirrors and fashion accessories we have to choose from, our malls are filled with the accoutrements of style. Last night as I strolled the shops at Pheasant Lane, I was surprised to see how many lingerie, jewelry, and bath & body shops there were. Granted, such items are a hot commodity as Valentine’s Day approaches…but judging from the ordinary bodies I saw slumping their stuff around the mall, we aren’t a culture of supermodels and pretty boys. There’s a marked disconnect between what our buying habits say we value and who our bodies suggest we actually are.
Just as my tendency to take too many pictures of myself says something about me, what I value, and how I spend my Friday nights, the stores and shopping malls of America offer a larger-than-life projection of our cultural obsessions and desires. We want things bright, shiny, and pretty. We want to imagine ourselves as the kind of people who wake up and smell the tea in sexy, sweetly scented bodies even if we actually aren’t that way in real life. Junior might grow up to be a total loser…but in his baby pictures, he’s perpetually perfect, smiling, and in tightly shining focus.
Hoarded Ordinaries 
Feb 5, 2005 at 1:21 pm
As someone who is trying to stem the tide of child-oriented products into his home, I find there’s certainly something a bit icky about the notion that a given product will somehow make my child ‘healthier’ or ‘smarter.’ I’ve come to realize (in my cloud of naivete) that baby products are not really for babies, but for everyone else; I think you (and Baudrillard and Eco and all the rest) are right that the kids themselves become products–or at least another thing to accessorize.
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Feb 5, 2005 at 1:32 pm
I simply love the fact that you posted a comment that mentions Baudrillard and Eco one breath after uttering the word “icky.” Can we deconstruct this “ickiness” (or is it simply “ick”)? 😉
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Feb 5, 2005 at 2:03 pm
Hmm. Not that I think they’re icky at all, though. Somehow I think that if we let Baudrillard loose in the Mall of America with a digicam, he might well fetishize his self reflected in all the sparkly stuff.
Simulacra Special, Aisle One!
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Feb 5, 2005 at 3:49 pm
Ooooh, have I succeeded in fetishizing my self? Goodie, goodie!! 🙂
Personally, I think there oughta be a law against allowing French theorists to wander loose in malls with digicams. But then again, maybe the same law should apply to self-important bloggers.
There’s definitely something creepy, though, about the “branding” of small children & infants. I can’t recall if the Pheasant Lane Mall has a Baby Gap or other stores for designer kidswear, but the prospect is terrifying. It’s all a matter of marketing parental insecurity: “If you don’t buy x, y, z for your kids, they’ll grow up deprived, and they’ll blame YOU for it.”
Personally, I don’t know how parents do it. It’s so much easier raising a dog… 🙂
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Feb 5, 2005 at 7:29 pm
Lorianne, I absolutely love these pictures. Especially the alarm clocks. But all of them, and you in them.
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Feb 6, 2005 at 9:06 am
I was nodding all the way through.
I think I am hypersensitive to the flotsam of mass-consumerism, and it’s always nice to see someone else worrying at least a little bit about it.
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Feb 6, 2005 at 9:39 am
Random observations: I like those shiny blenders, don’t think we have that brand here. The photo with the pedestal mirrors is soulful and rather beautiful, I think. And the book open next to my computer is by Eco
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Feb 6, 2005 at 12:00 pm
Interesting piece… but do we have to be deluded into thinking we look like “supermodels and pretty boys” to want to buy lingerie and jewelry? People’s buying habits may suggest they value how they look, or value improving their current looks; does that necessarily mean they think they are deluded about their own self-image?
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Feb 7, 2005 at 2:37 pm
A *pencam* takes photos like this?! Must be the photographer . . .
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Feb 7, 2005 at 9:54 pm
Beth, I don’t know if you’ve ever tried reflective photography, but it’s always such a treat when they turn out since so many of them *don’t*. Yes, I love those shiny alarm clocks…but I think my favorite is either the toaster with only my eyes showing or the pancake-flipper with the top of my head. I think it’s something about the partial face peering *out of* the product that says “projection” to me! 🙂
elck, for the sake of full-disclosure, I’m by no means immune to mass-consumerism. I shop at Wal-Mart & Target more than I care to admit–more than I “should.” But I try to be aware of the “stuff” I surround myself with. During this particular shopping trip, I bought nothing: I discovered that what I like is the *shopping*–the looking & browsing amongst strangers–more than the acquisition. But I do too much acquiring for my own or anyone else’s good, I’m sure. I’m no saint…I just recognize sin when I see it! 🙂
Jean, one of my goals in life is to read more Eco; in fact, I fantasize about teaching myself Italian & reading Eco in the original! Good to hear you liked that mirror picture: I was simply happy that I managed to get the angles/reflections right! 🙂
Good point, Daryl. I don’t think people are necessarily deluded, but marketers certainly are! When I look at the body types & shapes walking around the mall, they don’t look like the models or mannequins in the lingerie shops. I think lingerie shops sell self-image fantasies as much as they sell erotic ones: “Wear this teddy, and you’ll be sexy like this model!” If wearing the teddy makes a woman *feel* sexy, that’s wonderful. But if wearing the teddy is a way for her to compare herself to a model she secretly envies, I think there’s something delusional & deceptive about that.
SB, I’m slowly learning how to get the best out of my pencam, which I use during bad weather, shopping trips, or other times I want spontaneous shots without lugging (or risking damage to) my digicam. My pencam needs/wants lots of light, and you have to remember to set it to “macro” for close-up shots and “regular” for the others. (That’s why that first picture is blurry!) But since most stores are garishly lit, the pencam does fine in that sort of environment, and it’s not terribly obvious to carry.
Thanks, everyone, for the comments & kind words!
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