The Scot Tissue ad states outright that companies who don't provide proper accommodations for their workers face the greatest fear of capitalist employers - a union, or a revolution of the proletariat. Buying Scot Tissue Towels, it asserts, will keep the workers content (at least while they're drying their hands). Asserting their product as one of the causes behind the implied calm and effectiveness present in large companies such as Campbell's Soup, the marketers at Scot Tissue lead the audience to believe that providing employees with their paper towels will not only quell the revolution, but ensure economic longevity.
Playing on the fears present during the Red Scare (see the kairos post for more detail), the ad barely needs to state that keeping down a workers' revolution would be a positive outcome. The ad also claims that Scot Tissue paper towels are economically wise, as a worker would only need to use one instead of three or four to dry their hands. The action that the marketers would like their audience to take is clearly to purchase the paper towels. However, this ad also encourages a general disdain for Bolshevism, picturing the worker as dissatisfied, with a scheming face and a mischievous mustache.
By encouraging patriotic prejudice, this ad brings the concept of eliminating Bolshevism and the communist ideology in general into the realm of the public. The CEOs may stop the spread of communism by properly supplying their workers; a good american may stop the spread of communism by being content with the life their supervisors have given them.
I like how you recognized that the central threat of washroom Bolshevism wasn't just a random piggyback on the Communist paranoia of the time, but an implied threat of a socialist rebellion among the workers. It is apparent that ad is cleverly connecting something employers fear - worker discontentment and revolt - with something everyone at that feared, Communism, and claiming that it's products will alleviate both fears.
ReplyDelete- Robert