Films with: Peterson, Alex

Brand new you makeover television and the American dream /

"Offers a wide-ranging cultural analysis of the stories makeover programs tell about beauty, success, and happiness at a time of accelerating social and economic change. The result is a look at how our ideas about the American Dream, meritocracy, and personal transformation relate to institutional power structures and issues of race, gender, sexuality, and class"--Container.

DVD 11497

Shop 'til you drop the crisis of consumerism /

"Are we too materialistic? Are we willfully trashing the planet in our pursuit of things? And what's the source of all this frenetic consumer energy and desire anyway? In a fast-paced tour of the ecological and psychological terrain of American consumer culture, Shop 'Til You Drop challenges us to confront these questions head-on. Taking aim at the high-stress, high-octane pace of fast-lane materialism, the film moves beneath the seductive surfaces of the commercial world to show how the flip side of accumulation is depletion -- the slow, steady erosion of both natural resources and basic human values. In the end, Shop 'Til You Drop helps us make sense of the economic turbulence of the moment, providing an unflinching, riveting look at the relationship between the limits of consumerism and our never-ending pursuit of happiness"--Container.

DVD 7291