What do a hot pink dress, a sparkling new Chevy and a bright green Jell-O mold all have in common? Karal Ann Marling asserts that Americans became obsessed with such colorful new objects during the 1950s, and that mass marketing and advertising convinced Americans to display such items as signs of their success and affluence. Aesthetics is the key word Marling uses to describe the consumer culture of the 1950s, with a growing emphasis on the new, bright, fresh and colorful. As Seen on TV centers not on the study of television, but on the transformation of visual culture coinciding with the eme...

• Word Count: 2184
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: Undergraduate