The purchasing powerless: postwar consumption in The Twilight Zone

Abstract

ABSTRACTRod Serling’s Twilight Zone (1959–1964) emerged during a period of American history which has since become something of myth, legend, and lore. Seen as a kind of golden age when middle class aspirations were within reach, suburban housing affordable, and the nuclear family perfectly contented, postwar America was more accurately characterized by profound cognitive dissonances. At a time when the Cold War was understood to be first and foremost a battle of ideas, psychological marketing promoted many different facets of the American dream. While market researchers plumbed the depths of American minds and explored their subconscious desires and insecurities to better promote goods, homes, and jobs, American consumers were generally not as well-acquainted with understanding how psychological manipulations were impacting their rapidly changing world. Consequently, a fast-growing knowledge gap began to emerge between marketers on the one hand, and the consuming public on the other. The Twilight Zone, by focusing on the ‘dimension of mind,’ worked to raise viewers’ awareness of how their minds represented fiercely contested ground for marketers and postwar policy-makers alike. In particular, this article focuses on the ways which consumers and retail workers were increasingly dehumanized at the same time consumer goods were becoming more life-like.