Depcition of Germans and Germany in American Advertising
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From Trade Cards to the Internet: Depiction of Germans and Germany in American Advertising Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde der Philosophischen Fakultät IV (Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften) der Universität Regensburg vorgelegt von Felix A. Kronenberg aus Hannover 2007 Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. Udo Hebel Zweitgutachter: Prof. Dr. Albrecht Greule 2 Contents Acknowledgments.....................................................................................................................4 Preface.......................................................................................................................................5 1. Underlying Concepts: Culture, Stereotypes, and Advertising ............................................7 1.1 History of Advertising in the United States ........................................................................8 1.2 Advertising and Culture ..................................................................................................18 1.3 The Appeal of Advertising ...............................................................................................24 1.4 Stereotypes: An Approach ...............................................................................................31 1.5 How We Are Seen: Images, Stereotypes and Nationality..................................................41 1.6 Images and Stereotypes of Foreigners in Advertising ......................................................49 1.7 Images and Stereotypes of Germans and Germany in America ........................................55 2. Germans and Germany as Object of Admiration..............................................................61 2.1 The Efficient, Precise, Perfect and Diligent German .......................................................61 2.2 German Engineering and the Automobile........................................................................66 2.3 “High Culture”: Music, Art and Crafts ...........................................................................75 2.4 Endorsements and Celebrities .........................................................................................83 2.5 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................86 3. Escaping Daily Life: Germany and Nostalgia....................................................................88 3.1 Vacation- and Fantasyland Germany: Spatial Escapism .................................................89 3.2 Historic Germany: Temporal Escapism.........................................................................107 3.3 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................123 4. The Typical German in American Advertising ...............................................................126 4.1 German Lifestyle: Food, Beer and Gemütlichkeit ..........................................................126 4.2 Beyond Clothes: The Germans’ Physical Appearance and Gender ................................139 4.3 The German Language..................................................................................................145 4.4 The New Germans.........................................................................................................155 4.5 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................159 5. Germans and Germany as Friend and Foe......................................................................163 5.1 The Business Partner.....................................................................................................165 5.2 German Products and American Culture.......................................................................168 3 5.3 The Evil German ...........................................................................................................174 5.4 The German Business Rival...........................................................................................194 5.5 Germans as Objects of Ridicule....................................................................................198 5.6 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................203 Conclusion.............................................................................................................................206 References .............................................................................................................................212 Primary Sources .................................................................................................................212 Secondary Sources..............................................................................................................226 4 Acknowledgments Writing this dissertation has been a wonderful experience, which would have been much harder without the support and help of so many people. I thank my wife Elesha Newberry not only for listening to my thoughts and the advertising jingles and slogans I could not get out of my head, but also for keeping up my motivation during times of procrastination. Of course I would like to thank my family in Hannover, Germany, who supported me along the way and were always there for me. I thank my friends for putting up with my rants on this advertisement or that commercial and helping me stay in touch with life beyond the dissertation. I would also like to express my gratitude to Professor Dr. Udo Hebel, Head of the American Studies Department at the University of Regensburg, who helped me not only shape my topic and guide me into the right direction, but always gave me excellent advice when I needed help. Furthermore I would like to thank Professor Dr. Albrecht Greule of the German Studies/Germanistik Department, who agreed to be the second reader of this dissertation. Finding and getting the resources I needed for this dissertation would have been so much harder, if not impossible, without the possibility of conducting my research at Penn State University. My thanks goes to Prof. Dr. Wanner and the German Department, who welcomed me at Penn State as a visiting scholar for one and a half years. The administration and the library staff there have done a wonderful job helping me get situated and find relevant materials within the amazing library. There is not enough room here to thank the many other people that helped me with this dissertation, but I am very grateful for their help and contributions, even though they are not specifically named here. 5 Preface “Though advertising is widely acknowledged as having an impact on 'society,' most people claim to have acquired personal immunity from its 'effects.'”1 This dissertation sets out to discover how the world of American advertising depicts Germans (and German-Americans for that matter) and Germany. As this topic has not received any notable previous attention, the following analysis is bound to enter new territory. As the research progressed I noticed that an abundance of these particular advertisements existed beyond my initial expectations or hopes. The following dissertation works on two levels: while some parts are descriptive- cumulative overviews that reflect and portray the rich materials I found, others contain analyses of certain exemplary aspects and highlights that are indicative of reocurring themes. Thus the following thesis should not be regarded as a complete overview but rather as an introductory work that sparks further discussion and analysis. Further research might deal with a closer look at certain time periods or particular images and stereotypes. The dissertation is divided into two parts: the first chapter gives an overview of background information and theoretical concepts pertaining to the analysis. The second part deals with the analysis of a wide variety of advertisements that are related to Germans and Germany. The material is drawn from several sources, ranging from academic publications, videotapes, newspapers and magazines, online databases and websites to privately collected print and video advertisements.2 The search criteria include at least one of the following two conditions: Firstly, images of Germany or Germans are displayed in pictorial, musical, or textual form. This includes any kind 1 Robert Goldman, Reading Ads Socially (London: Routledge, 1992) 1. 2 Some ads in private collection may lack complete quotation information, such as exact date and publication information. Please also note that many academic texts do not quote analyzed advertisements. In many cases the only way to include certain advertisements is to rely on those texts’ analyses and descriptions without using the primary sources. Please also note that the source of TV commercials without specific reference to day, month, and station (e.g.: Mercedes “Toaster,” advertisement, 2004.) is the online database found under <http://ad-rag.com/>, the date of reference being April 5, 2005. Advertisements in the New York Times from before the year 2001 were retrieved from the digital archive “New York Times Historical (1851-2001)”. This database under the web address <http://proquest.umi.com/> has restricted access. Some page numbers or newspaper sections of cited advertisements retrieved from this digital source may not appear fully, indicated by “XX” used in the electronic document and in the citation. 6 of reference, however small, that