Freud - fear and fantasy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Freud - fear and fantasy - Essay Example The goal of this paper is to critically analyse how Newton’s TV ad appeals to its contemporary consumers through fear and fantasy symbols and suggestions. The framework of psychoanalysis will be used to interpret the meaning of this advertisement to target market segments. This advertisement uses fear and fantasy to respond to the unconscious desires of killing the ageing self, repressing sadism, and pursuing role reversal, and the conscious desires of being young and beautiful again, because of its underlying sexual and power benefits. One of the most powerful unconscious desires concerns violence, which in the advertisement’s case, refers to self-harming the ageing self. Freud's theories of aggression were multifaceted and evolved all through his lifetime. He first saw aggression as part of the sexual instinct that drives the â€Å"service of mastery† (Freud, 1905 cited in Yakeley and Meloy 2012, p.231), but afterwards, he believed that aggression constitutes a reaction to both internal and external risks, such as loss, and promotes self-preservation (Freud 191 cited in Yakeley and Meloy 2012, p.231). ... It indicates the subconscious hatred to be old, because to be old means being left behind, losing one’s social connections, and feeling weak, helpless, and unneeded. In the article, â€Å"When the Glass Is Full,† Bolgar (2002) talked about Erikson’s stages of human life, where old age is characterised as a struggle between â€Å"integrity† and â€Å"despair† (p.640). He believed that during this time, anxiety is based on â€Å"transference† or â€Å"resistance† to ageing (p.642). The resistance can be so fierce that negative emotions are attributed to the aspect of growing old. The â€Å"Olay Total Effects† ad maintains that old age is something people do not have to embrace in the physical sense. The signs of old ageing, it suggests, are repulsive, and the only way to preserve life’s beauty is to remain young-looking through using its product. Ageing is the first stage before dying, and so striving to look young as long as possible is critical to killing the ageing self. Looking youthful makes people feel less vulnerable to death. It seems that they are delaying the inevitability of their mortality. The compulsion is to use age-defying products, so that women can resist ageing. Newton’s Olay ad promises the fountain of youth. If Newton can kill the ageing self, then other consumers can also do this, without feeling guilty about it. The ad is saying that its product is the answer, or more specifically, the acceptable answer to the fear of ageing. They cannot harm themselves to fight the signs of growing old. Their anger can be diffused through doing something about their fear of ageing; this can be attained through decreasing its signs. This ad asserts that it can offer something