Consumerism & Hegemony -- Consumerism Week 7

In a culture saturated with discourses that encourage us to spend money in order to find happiness, it should come as no shock that many of us spend more money than we actually have. The current recession/depression has highlighted some alternative discourses about consumerism—many of which address the “spending problem” that we have as a culture. This Saturday Night Live skit uses some of those alternative discourses in its satire of our desire to spend more money than we have.

However, upon closer examination, is this clip reinforcing dominant discourses as well? It seems to suggest that people who do not have enough money, or people who have come into financial trouble, are “at fault” for their fortunes, and that these individuals are, for lack of a better term, stupid, which is WHY they’re having problems with money in the first place.

While this skit is certainly challenging dominant discourses like “shop till you drop,” the material good life,” and “the freedom to choose” with an alternative discourse of, “if you don’t have money, don’t buy anything,” it is also promoting another dominant discourse. This other discourse reinforces the notion that “smart” people don’t make bad choices. It suggests that those who are having financial problems should feel like it is ALL their fault. They SHOULD “know better.” Notice the skit makes no attempt to provide a cultural or historical context for why so many American’s want to spend money in the first place. Is this because if the skit did provide this context, it wouldn’t still be funny to us? Is the humor in the skit actually based on reinforcing (instead of challenging) the hegemony (cultural dominance) of discourses that blame problems in the American economy solely on those who spend too much, not on the culture that encourages their spending? Are we laughing because we recognize how ridiculous it is that we’ve been told to spend money in order to feel good AND then told to criticize ourselves when we spend? Or are we laughing because we believe these dominant discourses are “true”?