The Century of the Self - Part 1: "Happiness Machines"

Caption notes

The first episode of Adam Curtis’s The Century of the Self uses Freud and Edward Bernays as threads in a historical interpretation connecting public relations, consumer desire and mass democracy. Narration, interviews and archive excerpts contrast directing consumer wants with citizens’ participation in government. Separate how the film constructs this explanation from whether independent historical sources and causal evidence establish it. This guide summarizes the argument without concluding that one person invented or controlled consumer society, or treating the psychoanalytic theories presented as validated psychological mechanisms.