Barton, Campbell, Banerjee, and PETA

When I think of the paradox of agency, I usually go back to Campbell's definition of the community conferred agency: "The agency of the subject appears to be an effect of its subordination."

In Barton's article, the disabled characters featured in the United Way are given agency by United Way and this agency can only be granted once the disabled character lives a "productive" life according to society. For instance, the article uses the example of the blind character and leader dog. United Way provides the dog who enables the blind character to act "normally" in society. The blind character's normalcy is therefore granted by both United Way and the dog.

The article says that the disabled characters in the ads are portrayed as "dependent childlike adults" without agency, but I wonder if that's completely true. In Campbell's definition, agency is constructed based on the standard of a community. In the case of the United Way ads, they are targeting a community which values production. Normalcy is working a 9: 00 to 5:00 job. Agency is therefore framed with those definitions. The characters in the United Way ad are shown as individuals living "productive" lives due to their help from United Way. The characters are assimilating to the community's definition of "production" and "normalcy." These definitions may be warped, but they are the standards of the community.

Can their "dependency" be a kind of agency? The characters are, after all, "subordinated" by the rules of the community, and this subordination allows them to have some kind of voice in society, albeit warped and mediated. Could the fact that they have any kind of representation at all in the media be a kind of subordinated agency? They aren't seen for who they really are, but they are seen. 


In regards to the PETA ad, it seems that the person being "othered" is the reader of the ad, and the fear of that otherness is the pull of the ads. Two ads in particular caught my attention in regards to "community conferred agency": the polar bar standing in the litter and the chicks ad which ask us to "Go vegetarian for the planet." Both are implying that the community is harmed by our actions. The planet and polar bear are harmed by our waste. Eating the chicks harms the planet, our community. In other words, "If you're not a vegetarian, you're not a part of the community." In this way, the ads could almost be said to be threatening to take away our agency. "If you don't subordinate your eating habits to our rules, then you're harming the community." Without the community, we don't have agency. 


The United Way ads evoke "pity and fear" because the business presents the disabled characters are trying to become a part of the community. They aren't completely inside the community as proposed by the United Way. Fear is supposedly evoked in the community assimilated ad viewer. What would happen to YOU if you weren't totally a part of the community? Wouldn't it be scary? The PETA ads are scary because they're threatening to strip the viewer's agency. The animals are natural parts of the planet and community. I wouldn't say that the ads I've named give the animal characters agency, but they do represent preserving the principles of the community or preserving its natural and correct state. They are symbols for the rules governing the society, and PETA is pointing to these rules as being broken by the viewer. 


In other words, the ads are asking us to subordinate ourselves to maintain our agency. Acting independently of the community and eating chickens  is wrong. If we act independently, we lose our agency.