The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man
Encyclopedia
The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man (1st Ed.: The Vanguard Press, NY, 1951) is a pioneering study by Marshall McLuhan
in the field now known as popular culture
.
His interest in the critical study of popular culture was influenced by the 1933 book Culture and Environment by F.R. Leavis and Denys Thompson , and the title The Mechanical Bride is derived from a piece by the Dadaist artist, Marcel Duchamp
, titled The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even
.
Like his later 1962 book The Gutenberg Galaxy
, The Mechanical Bride is unique and composed of a number of short essays that can be read in any order – what he styled the "mosaic approach" to writing a book. Each essay begins with a newspaper or magazine article or an advertisement, followed by McLuhan's analysis thereof. The analyses bear on aesthetic considerations as well as on the implications behind the imagery and text. McLuhan chose the ads and articles included in his book not only to draw attention to their symbolism and their implications for the corporate entities that created and disseminated them, but also to mull over what such advertising implies about the wider society at which it is aimed.
Marshall McLuhan
Herbert Marshall McLuhan, CC was a Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar—a professor of English literature, a literary critic, a rhetorician, and a communication theorist...
in the field now known as popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
.
His interest in the critical study of popular culture was influenced by the 1933 book Culture and Environment by F.R. Leavis and Denys Thompson , and the title The Mechanical Bride is derived from a piece by the Dadaist artist, Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
, titled The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even
The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even
The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even , most often called The Large Glass , is an artwork by Marcel Duchamp....
.
Like his later 1962 book The Gutenberg Galaxy
The Gutenberg Galaxy
The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man is a book by Marshall McLuhan, in which he analyzes the effects of mass media, especially the printing press, on European culture and human consciousness...
, The Mechanical Bride is unique and composed of a number of short essays that can be read in any order – what he styled the "mosaic approach" to writing a book. Each essay begins with a newspaper or magazine article or an advertisement, followed by McLuhan's analysis thereof. The analyses bear on aesthetic considerations as well as on the implications behind the imagery and text. McLuhan chose the ads and articles included in his book not only to draw attention to their symbolism and their implications for the corporate entities that created and disseminated them, but also to mull over what such advertising implies about the wider society at which it is aimed.
Examples of advertisements
- A nose for news and a stomach for whiskey: McLuhan analyzes an ad for Time Magazine in which he likens a reporter depicted as a romantic character from a HemingwayErnest HemingwayErnest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
novel and asks "Why is it [his] plangent duty to achieve cirrhosis of the liver?" - Freedom to Listen - Freedom to Look: An ad for the Radio Corporation of America depicts a rural family doing their business with the radio on. Earlier in the Bride McLuhan notes "We still have our freedom to listen?" and here "Come on kiddies. Buy a radio and feel free - to listen."
- For Men of Distinction - Lord Calvert: An ad for Lord Calvert whiskey depicts nine gentlemen holding a glass of their whiskey, while McLuhan notes the lack of non-artists amongst them; "Why pick on the arts? Hasn't anyone in science or industry ever distinguished himself by drinking whiskey?"
- The Famous DuBarry Success Course: An ad for beauty creams complete with female model in a swimsuit hawks itself as a "success course" complete with "tuition", to which McLuhan asks, "Why laugh and grow fat when you can experience anguish and success in a strait jacket?"
Further reading
- "The Mechanical Bride" in McLuhan, Marshall; McLuhan, Eric; Zingrone, Frank, Essential McLuhan, Basic Books, 1995. Cf. especially pp.21-34.