“Hawaii by United Air Lines…now as low as $224,” United announced in an ad published in The New Yorker in July of 1953. Travel having exploded in the mid-19th century, there was a great capitalist incentive to advertise flights and cruises alike to various destinations across the world. The page commissioned by United Airlines features “Hawaii” as a header in colorful letters, beneath which is a large image of a tan woman with black hair leaning against a coconut tree holding lei’s and wearing a red and white floral skirt and bandeau. In the background is a white-sand beach scattered with lounge chairs, people, and umbrellas. Despite the presence of other visuals in the ad, this image will be the focus of analysis as it seems to use functions of imagery such as optical unconsciousness and objectivity to persuade viewers to decide to travel Hawaii, two tactics that ultimately clash by utilizing both imagination and reality as a means of attraction, and work to sell an unattainable destination.
The image of the woman leaning against the coconut tree induces a sense of optical unconsciousness that is meant to lead onlookers to want to experience Hawaii. Optical unconsciousness is a way of seeing that transcends consciousness, which photography “makes aware for the first time” (Benjamin, 7). Based on writing by Benjamin, photography can invoke optical unconsciousness by capturing details that are imperceptible to the naked eye, leading to speculation about subjects, their backgrounds, how they are feeling and why. Optical unconsciousness can be sparked by many aspects of a photograph, from the pose, to the angle, to the lighting. In this image the pose of the woman transcends consciousness and exudes a sense of leisure as her body leans against the coconut tree, leading to speculation about how calm she must feel, how that feeling may be induced by being in Hawaii, and ultimately how it may feel to be in that position. She gazes out into the distance with a smile on her face, causing viewers to wonder what she may be looking at, what the view in Hawaii may be like. Her pose makes certain that whatever she is seeing is surely pleasant. Props begin to play into optical unconsciousness in the image as well. The empty leis in her hand begin to signify that there is room for more people on the pristine beach she stands on. All of these speculations are induced by just the pose and the props held by the woman, and all create a sense of wonderment about Hawaii that aims to urge viewers to travel there. Optical unconsciousness can also seem to break barriers of temporality in still images, as Benjamin describes, the “future so persuasively inserts itself” into the “long past” moments captured in photographs (Benjamin, 7). The image breaks barriers of temporality by not only harnessing a sense of movement as a breeze seems to be pushing the woman’s hair to one side, as well as the leaves on the palm trees, but this sense of movement brings the Hawaiian landscape to life, potentially moving viewers to imagine a future trip to Hawaii.
In addition to invoking speculation through optical unconsciousness, the image of the woman on the beach presents a seemingly objective but extremely idealized sense of beauty in the depiction of Hawaii, once again meant to lead viewers to purchase tickets for travel. Beyond having an idealistic figure and long, dark, flowing hair, the woman who is serving as the face of Hawaii for this travel ad wears a perfectly fitting outfit that remains in place and wrinkle-free despite a breeze that seems to be going through her locks. She stands on a beach that is perfectly clean, with the flat, blue ocean behind her and a series of picture-perfect clouds scattered throughout the sky. Two identical coconuts sit at the top of the palm tree that the woman leans against. The sheer level of perfection displayed in this depiction of Hawaii caters to the description of objectivity discussed by scholars Daston and Galison, claiming that objective images “represent…an idealized, perfect, or at least characteristic exemplar of a species of other natural kind” (Daston and Galison, 42). With this definition considered, the image is selling the perfected version of objectivity. Perfection is considered to be attractive, so displaying Hawaii through the lens of such highly perfected objectivity is certainly meant to encourage onlookers to purchase a ticket to the island.
By leaning so heavily on optical unconsciousness and objectivity to create speculation and paint a perfect image of Hawaii that will persuade viewers to purchase a ticket to the island through United, the ad inadvertently plays with imagination and reality in ways that clash. The ad is treading on a line between reality and imagination that is ultimately counterintuitive. Through the optical unconsciousness evoked by the pose of the woman in the image, the ad aims to invoke a sense of speculation surrounding Hawaii, which is rooted entirely in imagination, and harbors a level of unknowingness that is attractive. In this way, imagination is being used as a central tool to attract consumers. This level of imagination is then threatened by the highly idealized objective nature of the image, which despite being rather imaginary itself, it interpreted as a detailed representation of reality to onlookers, many of whom had likely never been to Hawaii. In this way, the ad is creating a clash between reality and imagination, both of which are meant to make viewers purchase tickets to a destination which in itself is a highly imaginary depiction masked as being reality. In using both imagination and reality to sell tickets to Hawaii, the ad creates a convoluted experience for viewers that produces neither pure wonderment nor a true understanding of the destination despite the perception of such.
The mechanisms meant to tactically persuade consumers to purchase United tickets can function to reveal the lack of reality in this ad when looked at from a scholarly perspective. Sure, at a price “as low as $224,” a ticket to Hawaii may be attainable, but to step foot on the beach depicted in the ad, and to experience the speculated emotions being felt by those associated with the destination will never be possible. Perhaps the clash attests to the difficulty of selling a dream.
Works Cited
Daston, L. and Galison, P. (2007). Objectivity. New York: Zone Book
Benjamin, Walter. “A short history of photography.” Screen, vol. 13, no. 1, 1 Mar. 1972,
United Air Lines Ad. The New Yorker, July, 1953
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