Culture Jamming

Bansky is an artist which uses the streets of London as his canvas. He uses spray paint in most of his works and city walls. He highlights key social issues with his art and each new creation sheds light on diffrent subject matters.

Banksy art has been around since 2000 and has been known for its culture jamming affect. Culture Jamming is known for “an interruption, a sabotage, hoax, prank, banditry, or blockage of what are seen as the monolithic power structures governing cultural life.” (Harold 192) Banksy does this through his art. As an artist Banksy has “interpretive sense, requires both practice and knowledge of [his] instrument as well as a dynamic exchange among a community of agents” (Harold 197).

When people look at his art it's something new to them, therefore they often try to see the relation with the image and themselves.(Berger 2) In Banksy's images he focus on subject matter on a wide spectrum, from war to sexuality. The image I choose to analyze and explain is titled 'The fleeing napalmed Vietnamese girl flanked by Micky Mouse and Ronald McDonald.' ( first image above).

We all know the famous image that the Vietnamese girl originated from (second image above), and the emotion be hind it. We then see the poor girl sandwiched between two figures that all of us know, Mickey Mouse, who represents the Disney corporation, and then McDonalds, which is another globally known corporation. By having these figures in the same image and with the type of media he used, he is “playfully and provocatively folding existing cultural forms in on themselves”(Harold 191) The girl in the middle represents the weak, and the hopeless people left in the world. The ones who don't have a chance to have a voice. By having her in the image is a way to get the message across that it's the “effort to redirect the resources of commercial media toward new end.” (Harold 191). The new end that Banksy is trying to portray in his culture jamming image, is that the big corporations of the world don't care about the weak and helpless people of the world. While those people suffer, they continue on their marry ways filled with grins and a hop in their step. Banksy communicates this message well, just like in the rest of his culture jamming art.

Work Cited

Harold , Christine. "Pranking Rhetoric: “Culture Jamming” as Media Activism ." NCA. (2009): Print.