Narcissism as Liberation

Morgan Finley
Liz Lackey
Ashley Bridges
Amy Arismendez





“Narcissism as Liberation” by Susan J. Douglas



Description of Topic: Throughout history women have been trying to liberate themselves from stereotypes as well as from social expectations. Douglas discusses in the article that through advertising, women in the 1980s were beginning to backtrack and with their liberation become narcissistic. Women were now stressed to be successful and focused yet young, fresh, and feminine. They were then thrust products which would help them fit their new mold and told, “You may be successful, but with this product you’ll look and feel even better”. Douglas points out how many of the different beauty campaigns are set up as well as gives examples such as L’Oreal’s “I’m Worth It” and Virginia Slim’s “You’ve come a long way, baby”.
Summary of Key Points: Douglas covers many different aspects of women’s liberation and how they are portrayed in advertisements. Advertising agencies learned a new technique for the “modern woman” of the 80s where both feminism and anti-feminism still resulted in the need for certain beauty products that no person could live without. Douglas also brings up the book The Culture of Narcissism by Christopher Lasch and how ad agencies started to use women’s self-love and began to focus on how women failed to measure up to others causing competition and the need for certain products and beauty habits.



Discussion Questions:
1. In 1980’s advertising began using woman’s wants against them, making woman feel as though in order to be “feminine”, they had to buy certain products and that they would be successful if they purchased certain products. So woman, do you feel that this is still happening or have woman become more aware of this tactic? Now men, do you feel as though you are targeted through certain commercials to look or buy certain products to be successful?
2. Through advertising, do you think that companies need to associate their product with celebrities to sell the product or could the product be as successful if sold by the average consumer?
3. Why do we let advertisers frame our mindset or attitude of how we should look and why? Is there a solution to this problem?

A blog from Nick and Noel:

The hit series Heroes has been widely successful. The series is based on a series of graphic novels penned by Jeph Loeb and directed by Greg Beeman. The story of Heroes cynosure is completely crafted around the utilization of its rich development of characters. By watching the first season, one can become enraptured by the plentiful comic-book-like characters that (nearly all) have special superhero abilities—much like the X-Men; in fact, it would not be unreasonable to argue that Heroes is the live action convention to the various X-Men animated series. In our personal experience we viewed the first season and now find ourselves revisiting the series in the third season; however, our grasp of the characters seems to have diminished slightly (almost to the point of being confused). Character roles (not abilities) seem to have mutated over the seasons.

The filming style shifts from one plot segment to another seamlessly; for example, one scene featuring an incapacitated character laying down face up cuts directly to another setting where an entirely different character who is laying down slowly gets up; the effect is quite striking. Such stylistic devices mentioned are evident in most episodes. The name of the episode watched is titled Duel (episode number 47)—a duel between the wills of the good characters. “Sylar” (Zachary Quinto), the chief antagonist sets up a dire situation in which family and friends have to make life and death decisions, not only for themselves, but also (and perhaps more importantly) for their loved ones.

Even if one particular character is not appealing to large portions of the audience there are more than enough characters to compensate for one character’s shortcomings. There are multiple “heroes” and several semi to full-fledged villains. The title of the series further substantiates the notion that there are multiple Heroes. Moreover, a hero in the context of the series is not constrained to the typical notion of a hero; here, the special abilities of the characters signify a larger than life reality—not heroism; however, the show suggests if they have an ability they are heroes, for example: Nathan Petrelli has an ability and is a hero regardless if he is good, bad, or evil (given the season). The characters are not story board characters—they run the gamut of good, bad and evil, and it is this depth of character swaying that makes the show intriguing.

While there is a central theme to the series—kill (or avoid) Syler, protect the cheerleader, save the word, find absolution, etc, the episodes are often designed to stretch over multiple episodes. Typically, the good heroes combine their efforts to overcome the situation. When the equilibrium is reestablished, the episode concludes, but new complications always arise which in turn introduce the conflict of subsequent episodes. There are multiple overarching conflicts that are necessary for the series to survive. Having multiple conflicts that span over several episodes helps to facilitate in the retention of viewership. It is somewhat dubious to consider the show as an A-B plot. There exists a series of A-B plots in every episode; not to mention the under the umbrella of the enduring conflicts that span over a season and in some cases that have endured through the entire show (i.e., Syler).

The forces of good in this episode include Ando (James Kyson Lee), Matt (Greg Grunberg) who can read minds, and Daphne who has super speed. In this episode, Ando injects a serum which causes his touch to amplify the abilities of others. As a consequence of Ando’s new ability (he had never had a power before), Daphne gains the ability to move back in time (much like Hiro). The three continue their quest to save Hiro. Eventually, Hiro, the dysfunctional time traveler who is trapped in the past is rescued and brought back to the present time by the coordinated efforts of Ando and Daphne. Elsewhere, the cheerleader, Claire Bennet (Hayden Panettiere) who has the special ability of “rapid cellular regeneration” (rapid healing), Claire’s father, Noah (one of the few central characters that does not posses a power), Claire’s mother who has the ability to create fire out of her hands, and Angela Petrelli (no abilities), portrayed by Cristine Rose are pitted against Syler in a game of survival. For those that watch Heroes they most likely already know that she is actually the mother of Nathan and Peter Petrelli; however, in this episode up until now we were lead to think that she was Syler’s mother as well (which of course, is not true). Claire incapacitates Slyer and al the good guys escape except Claire’s mother as Slyer injected her with adrenalin which caused her powers to explode (literally); however, it is unclear if she died or not in this episode. In yet another location, Nathan Petrelli (has the ability of flight) and in this episode Peter acquires the flight ability as well by taking the serum that he was initially trying to destroy. Tracy Strauss, portrayed by Ali Larter, has the ability to freeze and was fired by Nathan. In the end of this segment the serum is destroyed and a few minor characters are killed off and the season finale ends. As you can see the plethora of characters can be slightly disorientating for the average viewer.