Oriental Fantasies of the American Advertisement Industry during the Late 19th-Early 20th Century: A Reading of the Recurring Images of Cigarette Marketing

Year 2017, Issue: 46, 137 - 160, 01.04.2017

Tarık Tansu Yiğit

Abstract

The “Orient” with its so-called exotic, mystified and mythicized elements has been a crucial staple for the Western imagination. For centuries, Western artists have imitated and re constructed idiosyncratic elements of the East in different ways, such as Turquerie or Arabesque. On the other hand, the predominantly “decorative Orientalism” of the pre-modern period transformed into an element of a Euro-centric political discourse, following imperialistic expansions in the 19th century. In this respect, Western fantasy over “the other” is not a monolithic, but a multi-layered phenomenon that simultaneously creates and reflects the ideological boundaries. American advertisement industry during the late 19/early 20th centuries did not ignore this phenomenon and used Orientalist images, especially on standard market products, such as cigarette packs. The scope of generic images on the cigarette marketing varied from landscape to mystic themes. Aiming to analyze the cultural/regional/gendered re constructions of the American advertising industry in the turn of the century, this paper focuses on the ways how the advertisers fantasized about the Orient through cigarette marketing. The survey concentrates mainly on the ways how the designers portrayed a stereotypical “Orient” by contrasting the Eastern and Western values, which generic images they made use of, how the cultural features gained new connotations in advertisement context, and to what extent they contributed to the Orientalist literature

Keywords

Orientalism, cigarette advertisements, tobacco

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