Century Of Self Theory

The documentary Century of Self Documentary written, directed and produced by Adam Curtis, goes to explore how Freud's developed theories were used by his nephew in order to manipulate the people. Edward Bernays was truly the father of public relations. He associated products with desires and got everybody hooked on consumerism. Edward Bernays was smart to investigated and applied techniques of mass-consumerism. He believed that deep down into all humans there is fear, using that tactic to control the minds of the American people. The ideas were put forth into all areas including economy, business, politics and more. Into analyzing the movie and particular scenes,we can make various direct connections to the sociological theories such as Symbolic Interaction, and the Critical theory and more into

Firstly, one example that connects to the theory of Symbolic Interaction, is the campaign to convince women to smoke, cigarettes were seen as a source of male sexual power. Therefore, Bernays associated the act of smoking with a sort of challenge to that power, then women smocked the cigarette. This would be a symbol, and satisfy woman’s envy of the male penis. He grouped woman to smoke in a parade, to protest the unequal rights of women, and protest against male dominance by lighting up cigarettes which they called “torches of freedom”.The press came to capture the moment, while women were lighting up their ‘torches of freedom’. For that reason the sales of cigarettes on women went up. He made it socially acceptable. He influenced women that cigarettes were like a symbol of independence and power. This was an idea to control the masses. By using Freud’s techniques to satisfying the inner irrational desires of people that could make them happy and thus obey. Thus, this connects well with Symbolic internationalism, which explains that people act based on symbolic meanings they find within any given