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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Topic: Subliminal Messages
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Aaron Sisemore
Flaming Ribs beat Reeses Peanut Butter Cups any day!
Posts: 3061
From: Rockwall TX USA
Registered: Sep 1999
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posted 12-24-2003 12:19 PM
You are right, Tim, the whole 'subliminal movie snack bar ads' are indeed a hoax perpetrated by the fraudulent data-passed-on-as-gospel by James Vicary.
From Snopes:
"Vicary's studies were largely forgettable, save for one experiment he conducted at a Ft. Lee, New Jersey movie theater during the summer of 1957. Vicary placed a tachistoscope in the theater's projection booth, and all throughout the playing of the film Picnic, he flashed a couple of different messages on the screen every five seconds. The messages each displayed for only 1/3000th of a second at a time, far below the viewers' threshold of conscious perceptibility. The result of displaying these imperceptible suggestions -- "Drink Coca-Cola" and "Hungry? Eat Popcorn" -- was an amazing 18.1% increase in Coca-Cola sales, and a whopping 57.8% jump in popcorn purchases. Thus was demonstrated the awesome power of "subliminal advertising" to coerce unwary buyers into making purchases they would not otherwise have considered."
"Or so goes the legend that has retained its potency for more than forty years. So potent a legend, in fact, that the Federal Communications Commission banned "subliminal advertising" from radio and television airwaves in 1974, despite that fact that no studies have ever shown it to be effective, and even though its alleged efficacy was based on a fraud."
"You see, Vicary lied about the results of his experiment. When he was challenged to repeat the test by the president of the Psychological Corporation, Dr. Henry Link, Vicary's duplication of his original experiment produced no significant increase in popcorn or Coca-Cola sales. Eventually Vicary confessed that he had falsified the data from his first experiments, and some critics have since expressed doubts that he actually conducted his infamous Ft. Lee experiment at all."
"As usual, the media (and thereby the public) paid attention only to the sensational original story, and the scant coverage given to Vicary's later confession was ignored or quickly forgotten. Radio and television stations began airing subliminal commercials, leading to two congressional bills to ban the practice being introduced in 1958 and 1959 (both of which died before being voted upon). In 1973, Dr. Wilson B. Key picked up where Vicary left off, publishing Subliminal Seduction, an indictment of modern advertisements filled with hidden messages and secret symbols -- messages and symbols that only Dr. Key could discern (including the notorious example of the word "S-E-X" spelled out in the ice cubes pictured in a liquor advertisement). The old "subliminal advertising" controversy was stirred up again by Dr. Key's book, leading to the 24 January 1974 announcement by the FCC that subliminal techniques, "whether effective or not," were "contrary to the public interest," and that any station employing them risked losing its broadcast license."
"For neither the first nor the last time, a great deal of time and money and effort was expended on "protecting" the public from something that posed no danger to them. As numerous studies over the last few decades have demonstrated, subliminal advertising doesn't work; in fact, it never worked, and the whole premise was based on a lie from the very beginning. James Vicary's legacy was to ensure that a great many people will never be convinced otherwise, however."
-Aaron
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Jeffry L. Johnson
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 809
From: Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Registered: Apr 2000
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posted 12-24-2003 06:11 PM
I knew exactly where these frames were in The Rescuers. I inspected these closely on the rewind bench but could never catch this onscreen when projecting the print.
quote:
Oh, look what someone did! Poor Disney! On January 8 1999, Disney announced a recall of the the 1977 home video The Rescuers because it was found, it contained an "objectionable background image."
Well, well. This part of Disney even has it's own conspiracy theory.
The Rescuers was Disney's most commercially successful animated feature at the time, making over $40 million at the theater. The Washington Post called it, "certainly the best Disney feature since 'Mary Poppins"'. When the video was released, people bought it by the millions.
The Points in Question (no pun intended) happen about 38 minutes into the film. Lady Bianca and Bernard charter a flight on their Albatross friend and are flying through the city. As they pass the windows of an apartment building, a woman can be seen standing at one of them naked from the waist up. Well, sort of seen. It was pointed out that judging by the reaction of Lady Bianca and Bernard, they sure saw it. But until Disney made the announcement that these shocking and unacceptable two-frames had been found in the movie, pretty much no one knew. Unless you were sitting and looking at the movie frame by frame, you wouldn't have seen it since it went by in less than half a second. There is a whole underground of people who (especially now with DVDs) go through movies one frame at a time, looking for these tidbits (remember the "Three Men and a Baby "ghost") .. but Disney? Who was worrying about a 25 year old animation? Well, all of a sudden this Peep Show was common knowledge as Disney very loudly and with great fanfare said the video was being recalled. The frames were put there during the original creation of the movie back in 1977 by some Smart Ass and when it was brought to their attention, they were on it like ticks on a coon dog. They were sooooooooo sorry. They also said that we could all rest assured that these two frames were most definitely not in the re-released 1992 movie, since it had been made from a different print, further raising the question, OK, then why are we bothering? Because they were Disney dammit and no one was going to besmirch their solid family values in their fine products. They were recalling all 3.5 million copies of every video sold. Only right! This was not acceptable! They were soooooo sorry!
Most everyone went, "huh?" and then rushed out to buy the video before it got recalled. sales boomed. Everyone looked at the Ta Tas in the Window. The Email flew. Conspiracy theories cropped up saying Disney staged the whole thing to try to salvage their tarnished image. There was so many other giggle-snort filthy questionable stuff going on in Disney's videos and with Disney Company itself, this was a blip. But since this was undeniably obvious, Disney could call this up as a prime example of just how fast they would act if they did find something untoward - so see? They weren't purposely doing anything untoward because look how fast they acted when they found something untoward! And they're soooooooooo sorry!
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Guess I should have read the whole thing. Thanks, Aaron. I knew I'd read that somewhere. Some guy who went to USC film school argued with me, just about to the point of blows, that the subliminal stuff was real. He made a big deal about having "some professors who would disagree" with me! What a bozo.
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