That Titillating Object of Capital: Reading the new Airtel advertisement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9BlI9nhqTE Manash Bhattacharjee The new Airtel advertisement, which shows the relationship between a man and a woman where the woman plays the boss in office as and the wife at home, has provoked interest and discussion in the social sphere and the media. Two broad positions have emerged from the discussions. One view looks at the advertisement as a progressive innovation on gender roles, where the man soberly accepts the wife’s dictates as boss in office, while the boss also takes care to cajole her husband with her culinary skills at home. The other, critical but straightforwardly feminist, view is that despite the transformed power equation in office, the gender stereotype is restored by the wife cooking for the husband after work. Both views overlook the complete nexus of titillation the advertisement holds out to the consumer as much as they gloss over a fine reading of the advertisement itself. Reading an ad, like reading a film, involves a detailed and close insight into the political codes of the audio-visual medium. An ad, after all, is propaganda for a product, which in turn is a product of the larger capitalist machine that produces the circulation of such a promotional art. The reading of the ad film will aim to dismantle this (superficially) coherent object of titillation. Placing the Titillating Object: It is important to first re-cover the language of the ad to see through it. The ad begins with a scene in a corporate office, where a woman boss tells her two male team members that includes her husband, a particular work is urgent and needs to be finished within the day. The husband, addressing her by name, tries telling her it isn’t possible. But she insists with a touch of apology, the work simply has to be delivered. This sets up the tensed atmosphere for what follows. As the woman leaves office, she checks with her husband engrossed in the work she has assigned him. There is a resigned look on the husband’s face as the woman enquires about the work at hand. While leaving, she tells him to call her if he needs help. On her way back, the woman calls the man from her car, this time addressing her husband by name, asking him what he would like for dinner. The expression on the woman’s face suggests that the husband has given an indifferent reply. Next, she is shown at home, in casual clothes, raking her mind for the perfect cuisine to prepare for dinner. The husband receives her call at work, asking him to come home, to which the man gently indulges in mock play telling the wife his boss has given him work to finish, and disconnects the phone. But the man immediately receives a video call where the wife shows him the delicacies awaiting him at the dinner table. She teasingly asks him to tell the boss that his wife is calling him back home. The man teases back, prodding her to tell the boss herself. There is a smile of reconciliation on the man’s face and the wife ends the call by once again insisting he return soon and that she is waiting for him. The temptations for the man are in place. The fruits of a good day’s work await him. He has satisfied his boss at the workplace the way a child satisfies his teacher at school, and has suitably earned the right to enjoy his reward. The coquettish boss-cum-wife and the aromatic dinner at home are equally inviting. They are also charged with erotic content. Wife and dinner are both appetising signals sent through the smartphone. The man at work, having served the conditions of corporate urgency well, is now being asked to return home and feast on his fantasies. The fantasies have been laid out before him. The woman has changed her role from boss to wife. This double role play keeps the man on his toes. The work and pleasure principles have been evenly distributed to keep the client’s ego balanced and satisfied. Economy of the Titillating Object: It is an incredibly neat ad, with both the man and the woman playing their roles in tune with the smooth background score. There is a delectable transition from workplace to home space, and the new-age couple fits hand-in-glove into the larger bourgeois dream of a perfectly run nuclear family. Their personal dreams merge with the capitalist dream and both worlds are happy together. Within this rosy scenario, smartphone smartly inserts its presence and completes the picture. Unlike the feminist complaint, the woman is at the top of the power equation, both in office as well as at home. Just because the wife cooks for the husband, the gender stereotype doesn’t fall into place. The gender equation between the woman and the man has to be understood within the new, advertised economy of their relationship. Just as the woman, as the suave and persuasive boss in office, holds control over the man’s productive capabilities, as the inviting wife who calls him for the dinner she has herself prepared, she holds equally supreme control over the man’s libidinal proclivity. The woman, enjoying power in the smart move to reverse gender roles, is the very symbol of capitalism in this newly erected capitalist economy of the ad. She alone owns the power to dictate, control and lure the subject of labour, the man’s labour power. She alone owns the power to dictate, control and lure the subject of desire, the man’s libidinal power. So what if she cooks for the man? Capitalism can cook for you to extract the necessary amount of your labour power, and to lure the excess of your libidinal power. Capitalism can cook for you to suck your blood. If the idea of labour is a norm in the capitalist economy, any form of desire (for food and sex) is the excess, the exception that needs to be tamed, controlled and dissipated within the