“Dad’s like a kid again when Bill and Bobby bring out their construction set. And Mom and Betty can’t resist a little “experting” on the sidelines. At all family affairs 7 up is a welcome part of everybody’s fun. 7-Up the all family drink-is a good friend of youngest and oldest alike. Be a fresh family…every member can be a 7 Up steady.” Vintage 7-Up advertisement 1949 (Ad from envisioningtheamericandream.com)
In the slides, I suggest that while Bradbury’s book attacks intellectual and social conformity, Fahrenheit 451 also gives us a complicated vision of the idealized nuclear family of the 1950s. In what way, if any, does the novel seem to welcome the vision of family in this 7 up ad? In what ways might Bradbury find the ad appalling? You don’t have to discuss everything about the family pictured, just one or two details.
The seemingly perfect family depicted in the 7-Up ad represents a version of the 1950s nuclear family that Bradbury purposefully omits from Fahrenheit 451. It seems to me that Bradbury would be appalled by the fact that every member of the family in the advertisement is gripping their very own bottle of 7-Up. The line “7-Up is a welcome part of everybody’s fun,” may have been especially appalling to Bradbury who wholeheartedly disagrees with conformity. I also think he may have been put off by the fact that this image of the perfect 1950s family was being used to push a product on consumers. This seems especially true to me based on the fact that the book was written just after World War II in a period of economic prosperity which the slides refer to as “Consumer Paradise.” While the fact that Americans had the ability to consume and had a relatively high standard of living was a great thing, it seems that Bradbury would have been uncomfortable with these new patterns of consumption and the creation of so many new technologies and products.
I initially thought Bradbury would appreciate the way that the family is all sitting together, smiling, presumably talking, and completing a common task. In Fahrenheit 451, Mildred is clearly more interested in her parlor walls and her TV family than she is with interacting with her husband, children are separated from their parents or adults choose not to have children at all, and free-thinkers like Clarisse and Montag are deemed crazy while clearly unwell people like Mildred are seen as normal. For this reason, I thought Bradbury might find the image of the happy family spending quality time together comforting and refreshing. However, I thought Jonathan’s comment was really interesting where he mentions that the family members are still giving attention to a consumer good (the play set) which he likens to the parlor walls in the novel. Jonathan went on to say “ In both instances, human interaction is replaced by interactions between humans and a consumer good.” Now, I’m really not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, I think playing with a train set as a family is really different from Mildred’s mind numbing parlor sessions. However, I also see Jonathan’s point that perhaps this is just a less dystopian version of the same fatal consumerism and conformity that builds out Mildred’s sad, pill-popping, TV drama consuming, indifferent life. Maybe the family isn’t really spending quality time together; maybe they’re interacting with the good and not each other.
One small detail Bradbury would dislike is the toys the family is playing with. The novel follows a heavily industrialized and mechanical world with no room for ideas. The most terrifying part of Fahrenheit 451 is not the government burns books, but that so many people don’t want to read them. Bradbury’s story fights for the arts and humanities. The detail of a construction set is small, but if the kids were telling campfire stories or painting, I think Bradbury would be less appalled. The construction set points to a more mechanical world run by consumerism and preference for the sciences over the arts.
Furthermore, this family doesn’t look like they talk to each other. They might spend time together, but as Clarisse explains, people don’t actually talk about anything substantial. Let’s say the kids ask Dad “How was work?”
He says, “Good. I wore a red tie which matched my red car. How was school?”
“Good we talked about fractions”
“Thats swell.”
Maybe this is overkill but I just can’t imagine an interesting conversation with this family. The kids might have some interesting things to say, but the adults in this ad reflect the bland, boring, and conformist gender roles of the 1950s. The clothes are uninteresting, the toys are stereotypical, and the only detail Bradbury would enjoy are the books on the shelves. There are no ideas in this advertisement, just consumers.
One idea I’m not fully sure of is Bradbury’s view on women’s freedoms. The essence of the novel pushes the idea of free thinking and individualism, but I’m not sure if this idea extends to all people. Part of me feels it does because Clarisse is the reason for Guy’s sudden change and drives the novel forward. Conversely, Mildred acts robotic and refuses to listen to ideas contrary to her conformist beliefs. Additionally, Guy slaps his wife at one point when she tries to burn a book. I’m curious if Bradbury is terrified of all aspects of the conformist society, or if he still feels women should be second to men. He might agree with the ad as it portrays the wife and her daughter to the side. It says “even Mom and Betty can resist joining in the fun”, but in the picture they don’t get to participate. I think it’s hard to tell from one novel because it only has a few characters. The slides covered this topic, but I wrote this before reading them, and I am not fully convinced of either side of the argument. These two women are extremely important to the story, and differ from previous stories where women are hypersexualized. Is this intentional or is not the focus for Bradbury? There is a lot to unpack here.
This ad to me seems to emphasize the idea of family enjoying quality time together. The nuclear family in Fahrenheit 451 ideally spends no time at all together. The one character with children says she deals with hers 3 days out of the month. In this dystopian landscape the separation of children from their parents is absolutely integral to the fabric of their society. The kids are meant to be brainwashed through the school structures they attend. I think that this add directly opposes that concept, at the very least. The ad encourages a healthy home environment. It glorifies the idea of parent being involved and present with their children, hoping that consumers will associate their drink with that state of being. I think that Bradbury might dislike the image of a healthy family being associated with an industrialist activity and used to sell soda. Bradbury strikes me as the type to think that a healthy family spends time together in the outdoors or through reading books out loud by a fireplace.
The novel welcomes the vision of the family depicted in the 7 Up ad because Bradbury makes clear the role of women in society through his depiction of Montag’s wife. The ad depicts the wife in a subservient role, because she (along with her daughter) is watching the men of the house play with a manly construction set. Similarly, Bradbury makes clear that these gender roles and expectations exist in his novel because Montag’s wife expects to be taken care of and keeps asking Montag to buy her more things (i.e. more ‘walls’). It is clear that both the ad and the novel by Bradbury take these gender stereotypes as a given, which most likely reflects the views held by society in the 40s and 50s. I think Bradbury would have been appalled by the fact that the ad is trying to convince consumers that a ‘normal’ and ‘happy’ family is one that buys and consumes 7 Up. Given his clear criticisms of consumerist culture that is present in the novel, he might perceive the 7 Up company trying to link the ideas of normalcy and happiness to the consumption of their products as being manipulative.
In the dystopian society displayed in Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 the nuclear family is nowhere to be seen. Guy Montag’s relationship with his wife Mildred is empty and distant, which is exemplified when neither of them can remember how they met. Meaningful relationships that once existed between members of the nuclear family now only existed in a television show that ironically is called “The Family.” Bradbury would find the 1947 7-Up ad displayed hidden weaknesses in the idealized nuclear family magnified in his dystopian society. Notice how the family isn’t communicating with one another. Instead, they are entirely consumed with the LEGO-like consumer good. This attention-consuming consumer toy is the equivalent of the parlor walls in Fahrenheit 451. In both instances, human interaction is replaced by interactions between humans and a consumer good. The 7-Up ad displays this positively as a way for a family to all come together and bond over a project. Bradbury’s dystopia takes this seemingly innocent activity and displays what could happen if consumerism became too rampant and the relationships between family members becomes less of a priority than those with consumer goods.
I think the main similarity between the family scene pictured in the 7-up advertisement and the idea of a nuclear family in “Fahrenheit 451” is the male-dominated emphasis. Bradbury has a very complicated idea of families in his writing, as children are seen as useless and most families mentioned don’t even have children (including the main family). In the 7-up ad, the women join to “pretend” they can add to construction/work that the men of the family are “experts” in already. In “Fahrenheit 451,” the men are working while women stay home, which maintains that male-dominated society and superficiality of reality pictured. Everyone looks happy and excited in the advertisement, but consumers depicted in “Fahrenheit 451” go about consuming as mindless rather than excited. Still, the advertisements seen through Montag’s eyes are all just as superficial as this one– maintaining an idea of happiness that does not transfer to reality. Bradbury’s commentary through about advertising and consumerism makes me think that he would find this general advertisement appalling because it gives a false sense of happiness from purchase of a product. I don’t think he’d find the depiction of the family itself problematic, just typical.