Advertisements and Assesments

In Don DeLillo’s White Noise, Jack Gladney states that one can find “new aspects” of oneself through shopping in malls. His sense of perception is radically altered by the ideas of commercialism and living in a consumerist culture. DeLillo uses Jack as a vehicle to explain the droning of everyday life in the modern world of advertisements and materialism, and Jack begins to focus on the influence as a sort of noise, a low humming that sits just below his normal level of thought. This sound penetrates every aspect of life, and the reader is forced to see how people come to assess and define themselves based on how they are affected by their product-driven environment.

Walking through a supermarket, there are many animated advertisements for new products: cereal boxes printed with characters, a new lengthening mascara, low-calorie microwavable dinners, jars of pickles and relish, cupcakes frosted for upcoming holidays, shampoos that smell of fruit, sales on specific slabs of meats or packages of diapers. There is nothing but plastic packaging and cardboard boxes as far as the eye can see. The colors, red, yellow, green, they draw the consumer’s eyes to the left and right like a chameleon, each one seemingly powerful over another, vying for the most attention. Some scream of bargains while others announce new products, fresh from wherever they were made, the latest installment of bread.

There is no sense of hierarchy in the supermarket, no preference or need of milk over a sports drink or a sugar-and-water combination labeled “juice”. No one is there to tell the consumer which items will most benefit his or her life, which will impact him or her negatively should he or she over-indulge, and despite the fact that we are better equipped to make our own choices in such matters now that nutritional studies have been conducted, it seems we are still unable to determine what we need in terms of what we do not. The weeding out process seems entirely clouded by clever marketing. This causes the everyday man to assume he needs Cheese Doodles more than he needs oatmeal, under the assumption that, if oatmeal was necessary, its makers would throw more money into advertisements. One finds oneself unable to distinguish with any ease exactly the items to throw into the cart, which will be used and appreciated and which will sit, unused, in the cabinet until they expire.

This confused sense of necessity plays into the way in which man sees himself when he enters a shopping mall or supermarket. He immediately begins questioning what he needs, and, in turn, defining himself based upon the items he deems worthy of his money. If a man is drawn to the colorful, fruity cereal, for example, he is immature and irresponsible, and if he buys the health-minded oat-based cereal, he is a hippie or a health nut. If a woman chooses skim milk, she is concerned for her appearance and possibly vain, but if she opts for 2% or whole milk, she is unashamed of her appearance and also possibly vain. There is no winning. There exist only extremes by which the consumer must define him- or herself.

Appraisal and assessment are reoccurring themes throughout Jack’s life. He evaluates his life, how long he has before he dies, just as much, it seems, as he does physical items, such as the loaded gun Vernon gave him or the Dylar pills. The fervor with which he pursues assessments he deems accurate is amazing.