Production of An Active Consumer 2

 


Part 2


While looking at these images of actual mascots/products and the images of children many dichotomous readings emerged. While Amul girl or Nirma girl came into being as mascots to advertise the product, looking at these images of real people, mostly girls imitating the mascot, they themselves become the product. Later when the mascots started appearing as autonomous entities they started to have opinions of their own, especially the Amul girl who had an independent identity and personality, and is famous for commenting controversial one liners as well. But again when seen as imitated by the common children/ women it gets associated only with the Amul prod

ucts. Interestingly when the mascot goes beyond the product, the customer while imitating the mascot comes closer to the product. Amul girl can be seen wearing Nauvari Saree to Army uniform and cricket jersey to gender fluid attire. This omnivorous identity has built over the period of time which also allows her to express her thoughts freely but when the Amul girl is recreated by individual people on an individual level it always narrows down to the polka dot dress and the popular passive feminine identity. 

Nirma Girl was a real person, daughter of the products manager who died early, there are doubts whether the Parle G girl was a real girl or is just an imagination of the artist. Whereas the Amul girl is a totally new and created character. But still these girls look and feel alive as they have lived through many decades. We should also focus on the use of girl children as mascots and its implications on consumerist society. This is very much linked to the discourse on 'BharatMata' and the discourse on gender and nation in general. In BharatMata the discourse revolves around religious fundamentalism and nationalism but here we can see the formation of nation, gender and capitalism which go hand in hand. The consumerist capitalist society and the creation of a national child within, is a very important aspect to look at. The question of visual language and its relation with the norm asks us to think about the process and journey of that language over the period of time to become a norm. These images, illustrations can be also seen in relation with the calendar art or textbook illustrations during the 70s/ 80s/ 90s. The images of the family and the children with no particular social, cultural or regional background but clearly an upper caste, middle class household with fair skin people living happily together. This is more visible in Nirma girl and parle g girl. This reddit image of Nirma girl shooting with two gun caught my attention. An interesting conversation can be seen here happening between this mascot image and an image below with pompom, popular entertaining object.

The difference in age group within these photos are also something that fascinated me along with the body types, the differences in the patterns of the costumes, even the length of the costume. Even though everyone imitates the same mascot, everyone's appearance changes according to their resources, cultural capital, social position etc. Parents' choice and an adult's choice to be like a particular mascot also changes the dynamics of this imitation. This active producer and active consumer are intertwined together and we can't separate them or put them in opposition. 



                       

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