Narcissus’s Happiness: Reflections of the Perfect Self in Advertising

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a reflection on the happiness represented in the advertising discourse, in terms of the satisfaction afforded by consumption. For this purpose, we focus on the content presented by the advertising film Narcissus, in which discourses, themes and images converge in a mythical construction of happiness. The analyses are carried out in separate but complementary segments: the mythical nature of the discourse that lays the foundation of the audiovisual under observation is discussed, considering the ideological and psychosocial aspects involved in its construction; emphasis is made on the syncretism of languages selected for transmitting its greatest message—the happiness resulting from the perfection of the Self—, evidencing the intertextual relations established, as well as the argumentative effects of the linguistic resources involved. The result was the effective dialogue between theories that, in their heterogeneity, lay the foundations of the considerations on the happiness inscribed and encouraged in/by consumption.