Case Study: The Commodification of Human Relations and Experience

We hope art will be universal, ideally transcending age, class, and cultural differences.  But the advertisement we were given as an example in this case study is very much of a specific time and place, and it's significance has an expiration date. The celebrity and his or her marketable associations are just as expendable as the advertisement they are serviced for.  Like the revolving door that is the 'It girl’ whom commodify their eyelashes, lips, and themselves completely; each 'reservoir of character' are used as a prop for the thing being sold.  Though the reservoir can easily become tainted by age, arrests, a bad movie, or simply becoming too unimportant, and when their marketability drops, the advertisement becomes devoid as well.  The connoted message is a useful crutch for advertisement photography when it's only substance is an object and ideology.