The Media Made Me Move

The media and its apparent influence on our lives is a hot topic of today. More than ever, the public is wary of the information being presented and critical of its accuracy. With social media, people are being constantly presented with ideals of perfection and the latest ideas and trends. While this might be a heavy topic today, it is not a new phenomenon. In class we discussed Charles and Ray Eames and how they promoted the image of suburbia through their architecture by creating films and marketing themselves and suburbia as a sort of commodity. From the images they produced, it seemed they were like Instagram before it existed. There was also discussion in class about movies and tv shows at that time started to portray suburban life much more often, showing people that suburbia was the way to live the best life. Today, while there are significantly more movies and tv shows than one knows what to do with, it seems there has been a shift that started in the 90’s that has shown more settings in cities. Even if some shows (Friends, Sex and the City, Girls, 2 Broke Girls, the list goes on) give us an unrealistic idea of what it means to live in the city, the image created paints the city as the place to be. Current housing trends show that more people, especially younger people, are wanting to be closer to the city if not right in the heart of things. These things bring me to pose the question – is the media influencing where we want to live or are we influencing the media’s portrayal of how we live?

Charles and Ray Eames depicting the happiness of suburban life

The television show Bewitched from 1964 set in suburbia

1990's TV show  Friends  convincing us that we can afford huge apartments in the heart of the city