A Democrat narrates, like a biopic, the life and professional career of Edward Bernays, an American propagandist who strongly marked the history of communication and advertising. In 1990, he was considered by Life magazine as one of the hundred most influential Americans of the 20thcentury.
Bernays was one of the first to theorize mass propaganda. His exchanges with Freud (whose nephew he was) allowed him to quickly master human behavior and thus develop protocols to guide public opinion according to the demands of his clients. In 1924, he was tasked with boosting President Calvin Coolidge 's image for re-election. Later, he combined smoking with female emancipation (the torches of freedom) in order to expand the market share of the Lucky Strike company. He also participated in the overthrow of the Guatemalan government (1954), in favor of the multinational United Fruit Company, which feared being expelled by the authorities. In his book Propaganda (1928), he wrote that "the conscious, intelligent manipulation of the opinions and habits of the masses plays an important role in a democratic society [and that] those who manipulate this mechanism form an invisible government that truly runs the country. »
His story is staged by the company Idiomécanic Théâtre, which advocates "a theatre of engagement, public and popular" whose role would be to explain and help raise awareness, by questioning the established order and norms. Julie Timmerman (graduate of ERAC and teacher at Cours Florent) is an author, director and actress. She is accompanied on stage by Anne Cressent, Mathieu Desfemmes and Guillaume Fafiotte.
The show takes the form of an epic narrative (as opposed to dramatic theatre, structured in fiction) where the actors change roles – taking the place of "Eddy" one after the other – and address the audience. The back wall of the stage, like a school painting, gives the creation a didactic aspect: it is there that the different stages of his life are exposed. The overall atmosphere is given by the music and lights (close to the cabaret) but also by the light tone of the text. It is not a question of putting Bernays on trial, but of drawing a dynamic and realistic portrait of him: that of an accomplished man, who regrets nothing. Each spectator is free to draw his conclusions.
The antithesis seems obvious: how can one claim to be a democrat and manipulate the crowds? In a democracy, since it is the people who are in power (demos kratos = power to the people), there is no reason why there should otherwise be a higher entity to manipulate opinions. Eddy's work is anti-democratic in that it deprives the population of the tools necessary for its emancipation and "transforms classes into masses " (Hannah Arendt, The Totalitarian System). It is not surprising that Goebbels used it to build Nazi propaganda. The historical error frequently made is to think of Hitler's policy as a politics of rupture. This is false: Hitler built his ideology from the policies existing in Europe and the world in the 30s. There is not totalitarian propaganda on the one hand and democratic propaganda on the other: propaganda is always the instrumentalization of the people for the benefit of elites. In the capitalist system, it serves to transform citizens into consumers and to make them believe that serving the interests of the elites is serving the interests of the entire population (example: making women smoke – profitable to Lucky Strike – while smoking causes cancer – harmful to the population). The behavior of populations being normalized by a form of social conformism that makes them "act like everyone else" (experiment of Solomon Asch), propaganda ends up generating a single thought and rarefy non-conformist ideas. As a result, the masses consume what power gives them (goods, idols, television, entertainment) without possessing the tools to question the system they suffer (information being hidden or modified). While certain realities such as ecology or animal abuse have nevertheless managed to impose themselves in public opinion, they were quickly recovered by the elites who wanted to maintain their monopoly (example: green washing of companies). Bernays' politics are now more present than ever, judging only by the pattern of the French media present in the show, which reminds us how much our information is filtered according to the interests of each.
Julie Timmerman's goal has certainly been achieved since she has managed to create an accessible show: even if we do not know who Edward Bernays is, we can fully appreciate and understand the creation. The whole is of quality but a shadow remains on the table: the optimistic ending that lets us imagine that another future is possible. But what future should be envisaged in the face of globalized propaganda ? How could a population deprived of tools and forced to consume revolt?
To discover urgently at the Théâtre de la Reine Blanche until June 23 and on tour throughout the France in the 2018-2019 season.
