This programme takes a critical look at mid-20th-cen- tury utopian promises and persuasions as dramatized in industrial and advertising films released between 1936 and 1965. In these films and related advertising campaigns, major American corporations appropriated old utopian ideas as their own, promising a bright, affluent future enabled by cybernetics, household technology, and new means of transportation and communication. LEAVE IT TO ROLL - OH, Chevrolet, 1949 A robot at New York World’s Fair 1939-40 leaves a woman idle.
TO NEW HORIZONS, General Motors, 1940
Futurama at the New York World's Fair imagines the 1960 cityscape.
COLOR HARMONY, Chevrolet, 1938
The shift from black and white to colour suggests the march towards
utopia.
LOOKING AHEAD THROUGH ROHM AND HAAS
PLEXIGLAS, Rohm and Haas, 1946
Experience the ‘dream suite', an all-Plexi-glas living area.
DESIGN FOR DREAMING, General Motors, 1956
A visit to the Frigidaire Kitchen of the Future enabled by computer
technology.
A TOUCH OF MAGIC, General Motors, 1961
Futuristic technology becomes commercial style in utopian vision.
AMERICAN MAKER, Chevrolet, 1960
This film promises futuristic innovation in everyday life.
HILLSBOROUGH WITH NEW HIDEAWAY STYLING,
Radio Corporation of America, 1960
Television attempts to reinvent itself by going into hiding.