The Commodification of Rebellion

You cannot blue sky your way to scandal. You cannot focus group outrage. Rebellion is instinctive, it is not curated.

Neatly gift-wrapped in its box of high production values, having been signed off by creative, creative director, client services, and the client themselves before going through rounds and rounds of feedback and audience testing: for some reason, the sense of rebelliousness in rebellious advertising feels somewhat inauthentic. Sure, it might make your nan spit out her tea, but if the intended outcome of your rebellion is a couple of tea-stained walls rather than a change to a system - was it really a rebellion, or was it just some carefully manufactured, formulaic pseudo-outrage?

The latest John Lewis Christmas ad dares to show some level of difference from the entirely cutesy, heartwarming formula that Christmas ads have stuck to for the longest time. There is no acoustic, solo artist cover of an ‘80s pop anthem slowed down 2x. There is no man on the moon. There is no animated foodstuff. However, in its use of the actual recorded version of ‘90s dance tune instead - John Lewis stumbled across another formula. Anyone who has seen Charlotte Reagan’s fantastic independent film Aftersun will know exactly what I am talking about. It is the dominant culture ‘borrowing’ from counter culture, and it is plain to see.

Counter culture has long been leaned into for trends. As a skate fanatic, I have seen a genuine subculture borrowed from by advertisers to gain cool points, and tapped into by giant corporations to further expand their sporting monopolies. Skate culture has been poached from and cherry-picked at, much to the dismay of the core of the group. While no one can be mad at the few that get taken along for their payday, it just shows the complete lack of ingenuity on the part of the corporate overlords. These are massive companies that want to play it safe under the guise of independence, not dissimilar to the constant quest in cinema for that “A24 Aesthetic”.

You search for a synonym for outrage, and alongside the likes of “shocking”, which is what these brands, films and artists are going for, you will find terms I find more apt: “dreadful”, “unbearable”, “nauseating”; all often served alongside an overwhelming feeling of self-congratulation. A prime example is Emerald Fennel’s Saltburn. Is guzzling jizzy bathwater really scandalous? Or is it just a talking point? Sure, I wouldn’t be rushing to do it myself, but it’s nothing more than a surface-level gasp-inducer - a prime example of the kind of scandal only sending ripples through the upper classes and the aged. It may not be prim and proper to drink one’s ejaculate-filled bathwater, but seeing someone do so in fiction is about as groundbreaking as a knock-knock joke. It is painting by numbers salaciousness at best, ruffling a few feathers for the bored and lonely who crave a bit of excitement that has been readily available for them since first-wave feminism.

Sex is not scandalous, not since Madonna broke boundaries in the ‘80s and ‘90s has anyone really had to break boundaries on this front. Saying the word cunt isn’t scandalous, or else Danny Dyer would have had no chance of worming his way into solid ‘national treasure’ status. However, these are the kinds of micro-rebellions that occupy so much space in cultural conversations. So much so that it means when anyone is brave enough to break the mould for real, they are often reprimanded for it, exactly the way that rebellions and revolutions have been treated throughout history by the system they push against. I’m not talking about JK Rowling testing the boundaries of just how much of your time is acceptable to hound trans people and trans rights activists online - it is not ‘cancel culture’ that concerns me, but just how these artists who genuinely innovate are pushed into niches only to have their entire schtick stolen by the mainstream as soon as it proves successful.

The hegemonic masses are incapable of being genuinely creative, and they envy the counter-cultural figures for having a bone of genuine creativity in their bodies. Just look at Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, who is seemingly deeply unhappy based on his complete inability to be able to understand what it is to be human or to construct a joke. So, when someone who has less money behind them creates something that the rich wish they had created, they are faced with two choices: do you want to make some money so we, the rich people, can put our name against this product too, or do you want us to steal your whole style further down the line?

The problem is, as soon as it becomes about trying to re-create something that has caused scandal - Sex Pistols’ debut album, for example - you have taken away the very process that allows things to become groundbreaking in such a way. You cannot blue sky your way to scandal. You cannot focus group outrage. It is gutteral, it is not curated. It is a raw need to create from which the artist’s motivations derive, not from a desire to seek clout for being edgy. Even where something is groundbreaking without being scandalous, such as Michaela Coel’s Chewing Gum, which offered the fourth-wall-breaking, witty dialogue-heavy, female-driven narrative approach to sitcom, it is then often commodified by someone in a more fortunate position and then claimed as their own.

In turning the formerly counter-cultural work of others into the central element of their formula, artists are reducing the lasting cultural impact of those they are ripping off and ensuring they form part of the homogenous landfill of content alongside themselves. If they spent this much time trying to craft a good product instead of trying to craft a scandal where there is none, the world of media would be much better for it. Post-break-up albums slagging off your ex and wearing hot pants while pretending to do lines of coke on stage might help people sell albums, but it will never cover up the pungent stink of their inauthenticity.