Pitch People

A disturbing collection of 1940s and 1950s United States government-issued propaganda films designed to reassure Americans that the atomic bomb was not a threat to their safety.

Arguing that advertising not only sells things, but also ideas about the world, media scholar Sut Jhally offers a blistering analysis of commercial culture's inability to let go of reactionary gender representations. Jhally's starting point is the breakthrough work of the late sociologist Erving Goffman, whose 1959 book The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life prefigured the growing field of performance studies. Jhally applies Goffman's analysis of the body in print advertising to hundreds of print ads today, uncovering an astonishing pattern of regressive and destructive gender codes. By looking beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products, and beyond analyses of gender that tend to focus on either biology or objectification, The Codes of Gender offers important insights into the social construction of masculinity and femininity, the relationship between gender and power, and the everyday performance of cultural norms.

The film shows one day from waking up in the morning all the way to waking up again the next morning. The everyday situations that many commercials are made of, the little dramas that they create and solve through the product or service they sell, are stitched together into one day. This is a film about the everyday in (German, or Western-European) society because the commercials are part of the everyday of most people (everyone who watches television) and they depict an ideal image of society. The film abundantly uses repetition as an editing technique, in visual ways as described above, but also because commercials can be read in different ways. For instance, Brat baking foil shows up at the evening dinner sequence, when an ovendish is put on the table, and again later on in the sequence about going out to a classic concert, because the clip has classic music.

Documentary about best-selling author and informercial pioneer Kevin Trudeau.

No Measure of Health profiles Kyle Magee, an anti-advertising activist from Melbourne, Australia, who for the past 10 years has been going out into public spaces and covering over for-profit advertising in various ways. The film is a snapshot of his latest approach, which is to black-out advertising panels in protest of the way the media system, which is funded by advertising, is dominated by for-profit interests that have taken over public spaces and discourse. Kyle’s view is that real democracy requires a democratic media system, not one funded and controlled by the rich. As this film follows Kyle on a regular day of action, he reflects on fatherhood, democracy, what drives the protest, and his struggle with depression, as we learn that “it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

Since the late 18th century American legal decision that the business corporation organizational model is legally a person, it has become a dominant economic, political and social force around the globe. This film takes an in-depth psychological examination of the organization model through various case studies. What the study illustrates is that in the its behaviour, this type of "person" typically acts like a dangerously destructive psychopath without conscience. Furthermore, we see the profound threat this psychopath has for our world and our future, but also how the people with courage, intelligence and determination can do to stop it.

From 1957 —the year in which the Soviets put the Sputnik 1 satellite into orbit— to 1969 —when American astronaut Neil Armstrong walked on the surface of the moon—, the beginnings of the space conquest were depicted in popular culture: cinema, television, comics and literature of the time contain numerous references to an imagined future.

Every year, thousands of commercials are made that never reach our TV screens, deemed too shocking to see. In order to make it onto the screen, they must clear all manner of obstacles, from fussy clients to obsessive regulators and restrictive rights issues. X-Rated takes a look at these outlawed pieces of advertising, revealing the most explicit, controversial and shocking ads never seen. These are ads that break all manner of taboos, from sex, violence, blasphemy, homosexuality, animal cruelty, rapping pensioners, swearing children, suicidal toys and naked athletes to Kylie in her undies on a bucking bronco. Amongst the contributors are advertising executives, producers and censors. The programme also takes a look at the embarrassing world of western celebrities in Japanese ads.

Chronicles the growth of the advertising industry from the 1950s through today, looking at the real men and women who created some of the most ground-breaking advertising campaigns and slogans and whose work changed the landscape of the ad industry. Roy Eaton, Jerry Della Femina, Paula Green, George Lois, and other creative giants recount the history of the advertising industry through unforgettable stories and campaigns.

Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which will celebrate its 50th birthday in 2007) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. The film is an exploration of urban spaces in major cities and the type that inhabits them, and a fluid discussion with renowned designers about their work, the creative process, and the choices and aesthetics behind their use of type.

A porn-loving, Charles Manson-befriending, Mississippi Republican runs to become the next sheriff.