< The Century Of The Self - Happiness Machines >

This documentary is about Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays and how Bernays invented public relation in the 1920s. He took his uncles ideas and used them to manipulate people. He showed big companies how to make people want things that they didn’t even need. In this case women smoking. He did this by linking products to peoples unconscious desires.

He made women think that smoking was a symbol of their independence and freedom. He made women think that if they smoked in public they had the freedom to do it. If women smoked it perceived them to be more powerful and independent.

Edward Bernays did this by using new techniques at the time like celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts.