“Mixing Pop (Culture) and Politics”: Cultural Resistance, Culture Jamming, and Anti-Consumption Activism as Critical Public Pedagogy JENNIFER A. SANDLIN Arizona State University Tempe, AZ, USA JENNIFER L. MILAM Texas A&M University College Station, TX, USA ABSTRACT Culturejamming,theactofresistingandre-creatingcommercialcultureinorder totransformsociety,isembracedbygroupsandindividualswhoseektocritiqueand (re)form how culture is created and enacted in our daily lives. In this article, we explore how two groups—Adbusters and Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping—useculturejammingasameansofresistingconsumerism.Wetheorize howculturejammingaspracticedoperatesascriticalpublicpedagogy,throughthe waysinwhichit(1)fostersparticipatory,resistantculturalproduction;(2)engages learnerscorporeally;(3)createsa(poetic)communitypolitic;and(4)openstran- sitionalspacesthroughdétournement(a“turningaround”).Weproposethatwhen viewed as critical public pedagogy, culture jamming holds potential to connect learnerswithoneanotherandtoconnectindividuallivestosocialissues—bothin andbeyondtheclassroom.However,wealsopositthatculturejammingascritical publicpedagogyisnotapanaceanorwithoutproblems.Wealsodiscusshowculture jammingmayinfactattimeshindercriticallearningbyimposingarigidpresence on the viewer-learner that limits creativity and transgression, and how it risks becomingco-optedbytheverymarketforcesofcapitalismitopposes. “Todo lo compro de marca y consumo a todas horas. Mierda ahora estoy obligado a ser feliz!” [Everything I buy is brand name, and I shop all the time. Shit, now I’m forced to be happy!] —Signwornbyagroupofculturejammerscalled“EcologistasenAcción” celebratingBuyNothingDay(DíaSinCompras)inMadrid,Spain, November24,2006,astheydressedupasdisappointedconsumersholding overflowingshoppingbagsandwailedandsobbedinbusystreetsandshopping mallsinMadrid’sbusiestcommercialcenters ©2008byTheOntarioInstituteforStudiesinEducationoftheUniversityofToronto. CurriculumInquiry38:3(2008) PublishedbyWileyPeriodicals,Inc.,350MainStreet,Malden,MA02148,USA,and9600GarsingtonRoad, OxfordOX42DQ,UK doi:10.1111/j.1467-873X.2008.00411.x 324 JENNIFERA.SANDLINANDJENNIFERL.MILAM In the United States, many consumer economists call the day after Thanksgiving “Black Friday” and count it as one of the busiest shopping days of the year, as well as the official beginning of the holiday shopping season. During the most recent Black Friday (November 23, 2007), U.S. consumers spent $10.3 billion (up 8.3% from 2006) in this post- Thanksgiving festival of consumption (ShopperTrak RCT Corporation, 2007).However,onthissamedayactivistsacrosstheglobewerecelebrating adifferentculturalholiday,BuyNothingDay(BND),whichbeganin1992 in Vancouver, Canada, and has spread to over 65 countries. BND brings together citizens who seek freedom from the manic consumer bingeing currentlycolonizingtheholidays,andcallsattentiontotheecologicaland ethical consequences of overconsumption (Adbusters Media Foundation, 2007). Examples of recent activities from BND include the following: (cid:2) The “Space Hijackers,” a group of activists in London, enacted the “Half Price Sale.” Wearing T-shirts exclaiming “EVERYTHING IN STORE HALF PRICE TODAY!” they entered popular London retail stores and pretended to be employees, folding and straightening clothes and helping customers. They also placed leaflets explaining the philosophy of Buy Nothing Day in the pockets of the clothing items for sale. (cid:2) In Tokyo, activists collected free ad-carrying packs of facial tissue, which are typically given away in busy commercial shopping areas. Activists altered the ads and inserted Buy Nothing Day information sheets in the tissue packs before handing them out. (cid:2) In New York City, Reverend Billy and his Church of Stop Shopping heldaBuyNothingDayparade,whichstartedatMacy’sdepartment store at 5 a.m. During stops along the parade route, Reverend Billy exorcized a cash register at Victoria’s Secret and said an anti- consumption blessing in front of Old Navy. Weviewthesevarious“culturejamming”activitiesasexamplesof“anoma- louspedagogies”(Ellsworth,2005,p.5)andcriticalpublicpedagogies.Inthis article we explore how community activist groups and others brought together by a shared vision of a more just society enact cultural resistance throughthetacticsof“culturejamming.”Insodoing,wealsospeculateon how the “public”—the audiences who view or engage with this activism— might experience these potential moments of critical learning. Culturejammingisactivitythatcounters“thecontinuous,recombinant barrageofcapitalistladenmessagesfedthroughthemassmedia”(Handel- man, 1999, p. 399). The term was coined in 1984 by the San Francisco- based eletronica band Negitivland in reference to the illegal interruption of the signals of ham radio (Carducci, 2006; Darts, 2004). Lasn (1999), founderofAdbustersMediaFoundation,explainsthatculturejammingis a metaphor for stopping the flow of consumer-culture-saturated media. CULTUREJAMMINGASCRITICALPUBLICPEDAGOGY 325 AndAtkinson(2003)explainsthatculturejammingisbasedontheideaof resisting the dominant ideology of consumerism and re-creating commer- cial culture in order to transform society. Culture jamming includes such activities as billboard “liberation,” the creation and dissemination of anti- advertising “subvertisements,” and participation in DIY (do-it-yourself) political theater and “shopping interventions.” Manyculturejammersviewthemselvesasdescendentsofthe“Situation- ists,” a European anarchist group from the 1950s led by Guy Debord (Harold,2004).MembersofthisgroupcreatedmomentsofwhatBakhtin (1973)andKristeva(1986)wouldlatercallthe“carnivalesque,”enactedto fight against the “spectacle” of everyday life. The carnival, for Bakhtin (1973), is created using folk humor positioned outside the officially sanc- tionedcultureofthoseinpower.Thespectacleiseverything—advertising, television, and so forth—comprising society’s “spectacular level of com- modity consumption and hype” (Lasn, 1999, p. 100); it is a theatrical performance that obscures and legitimizes “violent production and con- sumption” (Boje, 2001, p. 437). According to the Situationists, the spec- taclestiflesfreewillandspontaneity,replacingthemwithmedia-sponsored lives and prepackaged experiences (Lasn, 1999). Like the Situationists, culture jammers reject the spectacle in favor of authenticity. Inthisarticleweexplorehowtwogroups—AdbustersandReverendBilly and the Church of Stop Shopping—use culture jamming as a means of resistingconsumerism;wechosethesegroupsbecausetheyareamongthe more widely known and enduring culture jamming groups. To frame our research, we draw from cultural studies and the critical curriculum litera- ture focusing on public pedagogy. Specifically, we ground our work in a “Gramscian” cultural studies framework. This perspective conceptualizes popular culture as an active process, where cultural commodities and experiences are not simply passively consumed, but are the raw materials people use to create popular culture, within various contexts of power relations (Storey, 1999, 2006). From this view, popular culture is a promi- nent sphere in which inequalities of class, gender, race, and sexuality are mademeaningfulorbroughttoconsciousness;itisalsoanarenaforpower struggles between dominant and subordinate social groups—a terrain on which hegemony, or consent, is fought for and resisted (Hartley, 2002; Storey, 2006). ThisGramscianviewofculturalstudiesisapparentintheworkofcritical curriculumscholars,especiallythosewhofocusonpopularcultureasasite of public pedagogy. However, much of the public pedagogy literature emphasizes how popular culture perpetuates dominant values such as racism,sexism,homophobia,xenophobia,machismo,andviolence(Mayo, 2002), rather than its counterhegemonic possibilities. This work includes studies of various sites of public pedagogy, including the practices of cor- porations such as Calvin Klein (Giroux, 1997), Nike (Tavin, Lovelace, Stabler,&Maxam,2003),Disney(Giroux,1999;Tavin&Anderson,2003), 326 JENNIFERA.SANDLINANDJENNIFERL.MILAM and McDonald’s (Kincheloe, 2002); and the ideologies of films such as GhostWorld (Giroux, 2003b), Dirty Dancing (Giroux & Simon, 1989), and Fight Club (Giroux, 2001). Although we see the importance of exploring howpeopleareraced,classed,andgenderedthroughpopularculture,we also believe it is imperative to investigate popular culture as a form of resistance (Denzin, 2003; Duncombe, 2002; Solórzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001). Through our examination, we seek to “criticalize” the notion of “public pedagogy” and thus expand the concept of “critical public peda- gogy” (Giroux, 2000, p. 355, emphasis ours). Whilescholarsinotherdisciplineshaverecognizedculturejammingas a mode of communication (Harold, 2004) and as consumer resistance (Handelman, 1999), too little research within education—with some exceptions,includingresearcherswithincriticalarteducation(Darts,2006; Freedman, 2003; Kincheloe, 2003; Springgay, 2005; Stuhr, 2003; Tavin, 2003), and educators who enact and research performance pedagogy (Boal, 1985; Denzin, 2003; Garoian, 1999)—has focused on how popular culture can act as critical pedagogy. This is surprising given the many manifestationsofcriticalpublicpedagogyoccurringinpopularandpublic culture, including the work of activists and artists such as The Guerilla Girls,GuillermoGómez-Peña,JamesLuna,AdrianPiper,andTheYesMen. However, despite a handful of studies of public pedagogy as a means of resistance (e.g., Martin, 2005), much work in the area of “critical public pedagogy” has remained theoretical, consisting mainly of “calls to action” (Brady,2006;Giroux,2000,2003a,2003c,2004a,2004b,2004c;Pozo,2005) and has been harshly criticized for perpetuating “highly abstract and utopian”idealsthatreinforcerepressivemythsandperpetuatehegemonic relations(Ellsworth,1988,p.298).Moreover,whilearteducationscholars have examined how culture jamming may be used in schools to promote civic engagement with images, society, and identities (Tavin etal., 2003), much of this work is new, remains largely theorized, and is not widely implemented in general or art education contexts. Like Mayo (2002) and Giroux (2004b), we see the need to explore specific practices of critical public pedagogies, in order to understand how they operate. WefindEllsworth’s(2005)mostrecentworkonpublicpedagogyhelpful in our exploration; she urges critical educators to explore what she calls “anomalous places of learning”—museums, public art installations, films, and other forms of popular culture. We engage with her idea of the “pedagogical hinge” (p. 5) to examine culture jamming as critical public pedagogy,andtodiscoverhowculturejammingfunctionsasapowerfulsite oflearning.Inaddition,weborrowfromEllsworthawayofthinkingabout educationwithinpopularcultureasaprocessratherthanaproduct,andseek tounderstandhowknowledgeiscreatedandexperiencedbythe“learning selfinthemaking”(p.2).ToEllsworth,publicpedagogyismostpowerful when it creates “transitional spaces”—when it connects our inner selves to people, objects, and places outside of ourselves. CULTUREJAMMINGASCRITICALPUBLICPEDAGOGY 327 Finally, we focus on culture jamming groups specifically addressing issuesofconsumerismandoverconsumption,followingReynolds’s(2004) recentcallforcurriculumscholarstoexploreworkthatresists“thebrand- namecorporateorder”(p.32).ReverendBillyandAdbustersarepartofa wider social movement focused on resisting consumerism and consump- tion that has received little attention among educational researchers; this movement includes groups working toward labor rights, fighting against thedestructiveconsequencesofglobalizationandadvocatingforfairtrade, raising awareness about global sweatshops, and fighting against the eco- logicaldestructionthataccompaniesmassiveoverconsumption.Thissocial movement “attempt[s] to transform various elements of the social order surroundingconsumptionandmarketing”(Kozinets&Handelman,2004, p. 691). While a handful of educators have focused on various social movementsthatresistconsumption(Jubas,2006;Sandlin,2005;Sandlin& Milam, 2007; Spring, 2003; Usher, Bryant, & Johnston, 1997), we believe educatorsneedtopaymoreattentiontoconsumption,giventheincreasing role it plays in structuring every aspect of our lives and in fostering gross social and economic disparities (Bocock, 1993; McLaren, 2005).We thus place our work in the context of recent concerns of critical curriculum scholars about the increasing power of global corporate hypercapitalism and the imperialism of commercialism which shape the educational mes- sagesofpopularculturewhileeradicatinganypublicspherenotcontrolled by the market (Giroux, 2003c; McLaren, 2005). THE CASES OF ADBUSTERS AND REVEREND BILLY AND THE CHURCH OF STOP SHOPPING Wedrawfrommultiplesourcesofdataforthisproject.FollowingEllsworth (2005),weusedsecondarydatafromscholarsinotherdisciplineswhohave researchedandwrittenaboutculturejamming,andfromculturejamming activists who participate in, record, and write about their activism—“the wordsandconceptsofothers”—as“rawmaterial”(p.13).Wealsoanalyzed datafromtwoculturejamminggroups,AdbustersandReverendBillyand theChurchofStopShopping.ToexamineAdbusters,wegatheredtextual and visual material from its Web site, including blogs, articles, and “sub- vertisements”;10issuesofAdbustersmagazinepublishedbetween2003and 2006; and a curriculum guide for high school teachers published by Adbusters that focuses on critical media literacy. To examine Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, we gathered textual, visual, and audiomaterialfromitsWebsite,includingblogs,MP3sofReverendBilly’s “sermons,”photographs,andpublicperformance“scripts”writtenbyRev- erendBilly.Wealsoexaminedtworecentdocumentaries(Post&Palacios, 2006; Sharpe, 2001) containing interviews with Reverend Billy, footage of Reverend Billy enacting performance interventions, and footage of 328 JENNIFERA.SANDLINANDJENNIFERL.MILAM ReverendBillypreachinginvariousvenues.Finally,weexaminedReverend Billy’s recent autobiography (Talen, 2003). We sought in our analysis to make sense of how culture jamming oper- ates as curriculum. Duncombe (2002) explains that when analyzing cultural resistance, one must examine four aspects: the content of the resistance,theformittakes,thewaysitisinterpreted,andtheactivitiesof its creation. We viewed the various forms of data we gathered—including visual, written, and performative—as “cultural texts,” and drawing upon McKee’s (2003) approach to interpretive cultural textual analysis, we soughttounderstandhowculturejammersviewedandcritiquedtheworld around them, how they created alternative visions of the world, and how they articulated these visions to others. To further understand culture jamming as curriculum, we also drew upon ethnographic or qualitative mediaanalysis(Altheide,1987,1996),whichfocusesontheethnographyof cultural texts and consists of the “reflexive movement between concept development, sampling, data collection, data coding, data analysis, and interpretation” (Altheide, 1987, p. 65). Altheide (1987) further explains that this type of analysis is embedded in constant discovery and constant comparison, but seeks to go beyond description of the content of texts, to arrive at understanding of broader social discourses created by and reflected in the texts. Adbusters is a magazine produced by the Adbusters Media Foundation. BasedinVancouver,Canada,Adbustersdescribesitselfas“aglobalnetwork of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepre- neurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the infor- mation age. Our aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21st century” (Adbusters Media Foundation,n.d.).ThecontentofAdbustersfocusesontwomainthemes— howmarketingandmassmediacolonizespace,andhowglobalcapitalism and rampant consumption are destroying natural environments (Rumbo, 2002). Adbusters magazine (Figure1) is a reader-supported, not-for-profit magazine with an international circulation of 85,000 and contains reader- generated materials, commentaries by activists from across the globe, and photographs and stories depicting readers’ social activism. Adbusters also hosts a Web site (http://www.Adbusters.org/) where activists can read about anti-consumption campaigns; download posters, stickers, and flyers for distribution; and share information about their own activism. Some of Adbusters’ ongoing campaigns include Buy Nothing Day (described earlier) and TV Turnoff Week (a week in April where individuals are encouraged to take a break from the incessant commercial messages comingthroughtheirtelevisionsbyjustturningthemoff;insteadofwatch- ing TV, Adbusters encourages people to interact with others and become involved in community activism). ReverendBillyisananti-consumptionperformanceartistbasedinNew YorkCity,andtheleaderoftheChurchofStopShopping.BillTalen,whose CULTUREJAMMINGASCRITICALPUBLICPEDAGOGY 329 FIGURE1. FIGURE2. stage character is Reverend Billy, adopts the persona of a Southern, con- servative, evangelical preacher—à la Jimmy Swaggart—including pouffy hair and a white suit (Figure2). He stages “comic theatrical service[s]” (Lane, 2002, p. 60)—structured as comic church services— with “readings from the saints (or the devils), publicconfessions,collectiveexorcisms,thehonoringofnewsaints,dona- tionstothecause,alivelychoir,andarousingsermon”(Lane,2002,p.61). 330 JENNIFERA.SANDLINANDJENNIFERL.MILAM Duringtheseservices,heactsoutacall-and-responsestyleofpreachingas the audience responds with Amens! and Hallelujahs! Reverend Billy also performs“retailinterventions”inpublicspacesandretailstoresalongwith the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir; some of his popular targets of anti- consumption activism include the Disney Company, Starbucks, Wal-Mart, and Victoria’s Secret. In addition, Reverend Billy writes “intervention manuals”andscriptsthatotheractivistscanuseintheirownpublictheater jams. CULTURE JAMMING AS CRITICAL PUBLIC PEDAGOGY Ouranalysisfocusedonhowandwhyculturejammingactivistsenactwhat we position as critical public pedagogy. Given the nature of our data— which focuses primarily on the activities of the jammers themselves, and much less on audience members’ reactions—we portray the espoused and enacted pedagogy of culture jamming, and at this point can only speculate about how audiences receive that pedagogy; we hope in future research to focusmoreonaudiencereactions.Wepositthatculturejammingoperates as potentially powerful pedagogy through the ways in which it seeks to foster participatory cultural production, engages with the learner and the “teacher” corporeally, and aims to foster the creation of a community politic.Wefurtherarguethatculturejamming’s“pedagogicalhinge”liesin the ways it aims to produce a sense of “détournement” in audience members,whichcanoperateasaformof“transitionalspace.”Finally,while werecognizeculturejamming’spotentialpedagogyofpossibility(Giroux& Simon, 1988), our analysis also revealed moments of coercion and compliance—what we call culture jamming’s “loose pedagogical hinge”— which can shut down rather than encourage the possibility of counterhe- gemonic transgression (hooks, 1994). Fostering Participatory, Resistant Cultural Production Ellsworth(2005)arguesthatthequestionofpedagogyis“howtousewhat has already been thought as a provocation and a call to invention” (p. 165, emphasis ours). Powerful pedagogies thus engage learners as creators. Critical pedagogy advocates argue that learners should become cultural producers and build new, more democratic cultural realities (Giroux, 2004c). One aspect of culture jamming’s potential power as critical peda- gogy, then, lies in how it seeks to foster participatory cultural production. Inourcurrentconditionofhypercapitalism(Graham,2006)groundedin consumption, it is a defiant notion that individuals are capable of and shouldberesponsiblefortheirownentertainment(Duncombe,1997);yet CULTUREJAMMINGASCRITICALPUBLICPEDAGOGY 331 it is this very ideal that culture jammers promote. Duncombe (1997) also posits that current cultural critique necessarily involves a critique of con- sumerism,arguingthat“anyvisionofanewworldmustincludeanewvision of how culture and products will be produced and consumed” (p. 105). This new vision involves culture jammers becoming cultural producers and creators who actively resist, critique, appropriate, reuse, recreate, and alter cultural products and entertainment. As evidenced by the varied Buy Nothing Day actions and the other explicationsofculturejammingdescribedatthebeginningofthisarticle, culture jamming is enacted in many forms, all of which rely on creative culturalproductionandultimatelyseektochallengeandchangedominant discourses and practices of multinational corporations (Harold, 2004). Duncombe(2002)explainsthatculturalresistersshiftfrombeingconsum- ers to being creators; indeed, this is what drove the genesis of Adbusters. Lasn (2006) explains: We had this nasty feeling that “we the people” were slowly but surely losing our power to sing the songs and tell the stories and generate our culture from the bottom up. More and more, the stories were being fed to us top-down by TV networks, ad agencies and corporations...[We wanted to take] the storytelling, culture-generatingpowerbackfromcommercialandcorporateforces.(p.85) As a form of cultural resistance, then, culture jamming is a “free space” where artists and activists can “experiment with new ways of seeing and being” and where they can “develop tools and resources for resistance” (Duncombe, 2002, p. 5). Adbusters magazine, for instance, encourages reader submissions; readers create and contribute a majority of text and artwork in the magazine. These submissions range from “fake ads” (sub- vertisements); to critical musings on politics, the environment, fashion, culture,andnutrition;tovisualartworkandpoetry;tomorejournalisticor academicarticlesonavarietyoftopics(recentissueshavefeaturedarticles on true cost economics, the Israeli–Palestinian crisis, and the effects of Agent Orange used in the Vietnam War). During his “revivals,” Reverend Billy also invites audience members to participate: to sing along, confess theirsins,ordance.ThroughhisWebsite,audiencememberscandiscuss issuesandsharestrategiesforcreatingmoreawarenessamongconsumers; they can also find performance scripts that they can borrow, change, and enact in local contexts. We posit that culture jammers thus hope to turn typicallypassiveactivitiesintoactiveonesinwhichtheycreateculturerather than simply consume it. In doing so, they aim to redefine themselves and their relationships with consumption, and to redefine possibilities for the future. Both Adbusters and Reverend Billy engage in cultural production as they alter and give new, resistant meanings to popular cultural symbols. Culturejammersinterrupthowpublicspacesaretypicallyusedandunder- stood “in ways that hold the potential for education to be contemporane- 332 JENNIFERA.SANDLINANDJENNIFERL.MILAM ous with social change and identities in the making” (Ellsworth, 2005, p.58).Culturejammersthusclearlydemonstratehowpopularcultureisa field of contestation. Adbusters, through its “subvertisements,” plays with and gives new meaning to the “memes” of popular culture, including the iconography associated with multinational corporations such as McDonald’s, Nike, Absolut Vodka, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, and numerous others. Memes are media viruses that spread throughout society—forexample,advertisingjingles,quotesfrommoviesandsituation comedies,advertisingslogans,andthelikethat“worktheirwayintoevery- day conversations” (Duncombe, 2002, p. 369). Adbusters uses the forms of media that viewers are already familiar with, and takes advantage of the powerofalready-existingmemesthatarepartofconsumerconsciousness. However,throughsubvertisements,Adbusters“jams”ordisruptsdominant memes in ways that expose negative social, environmental, cultural, or ethical consequences of the practices of multinational corporations; in so doing, Adbusters lures viewers into interactions “with ‘alternative’ subject matterwhichposesasa‘dominant’mediadeployment”(Tietchen,2001,p. 117).ThusAdbusters’subvertisementsoperatelikevaccinesorantidotesto memes,astheyshakeusoutofconsumertrancesandrefocusourattention onmessagesthatruncountertodominantmediaideology(Boyd,2002).If, as Lasn (1999) argues, “whoever has the memes has the power” (p. 123), then one potential avenue for social change lies in hijacking memes to disrupt and counteract the very messages they are trying to convey. For example, Figure3 appropriates the memes originally created and circulated by Calvin Klein’s Obsession perfume advertising campaign. However, this subvertisement shows not a runway model which a reader might, at first glance, believe she/he is seeing, but instead an emaciated womanleaningoveratoiletpresumablytovomit.Thesubvertisementgives newmeaningtothemedia-producedidealof“thinness”andtotheCalvin Klein brand by clearly associating it with eating disorders, and through pointing out the ethical and health consequences of too many young woman being influenced by the powerful fashion industry and its unreal- istic standards of beauty. ReverendBilly,too,playswithmemescreatedanddistributedbycorpo- rations such as Disney, Starbucks, and Victoria’s Secret. For instance, during his “shopping interventions” at Disney retail stores, Reverend Billy and members of his church often carry large wooden crosses with Mickey and Minnie Mouse stuffed animals “crucified” on them. Reverend Billy explains: The Disney Company is the high church of retail. And that’s why we put Mickey Mouse on the cross. We’re taking two great organized religions [Christianity and whathecallstheChurchofConsumerism]andgrindingthemtogetherandtrying to confuse people so they can think in a new way....I want the symbols and meaningstoflyaway.(ReverendBilly,asinterviewedinPost&Palacios,2006)