Review

Review What do a hot pink dress, a sparkling new Chevy and a bright green Jell-O mold all have in common' Karal Ann Marling asserts that Americans became obsessed with such colorful new objects during the 1950s, and that mass marketing and advertising convinced Americans to display such items as signs of their success and affluence. Aesthetics is the key word Marling uses to describe the consumer culture of the 1950s, with a growing emphasis on the new, bright, fresh and colorful. As Seen on TV centers not on the study of television, but on the transformation of visual culture coinciding with the emergence of commercial television. Contrary to the historians who view the 1950s as an era of conformity, Marling states that such new choices within the mass market signified democracy, freedom and individuality to the American people. After the Great Depression and World War II, Americans were eager to exploit new American abundance and wealth and to put deprivation and war rationing behind them. Manufacturers and designers offered Americans a variety of aesthetic choices. A new disposition towards form over function led to fluctuating trends in the market, including drastic yearly changes in items ranging from clothing to automobiles new, american, culture, americans, 1950s, marling, women, time, home, television, consumer, tv, freedom, family, car, visual, popular, mass, hobby, first, book, became, art, war, provided, leisure, food, automobiles, world, within, served, public, paint-by-number, one, mamie, look