The Hidden Radicalism of Extreme Couponing
For many viewers Extreme Couponing is just another crazy US-American reality TV show. However it is much more: it represents the inherent contradiction of the capitalist system.
The majority of episodes of Extreme Couponing follow the same plot line. Each episode visits two extreme couponers at their respective homes. The first couponer is usually a stay-at-home mother. The stay-at-home mother, despite already owning a considerable stockpile of retail items, is absolutely convinced that she and her family desperately need 500 bottles of gatorade. The second couponer is usually a young man aged 16 to 24 of who attempts to compensate for his unspoken mental issues by buying vast amounts of questionable items, such as 62 frozen dinners.
At first glance, Extreme Couponing seems to be a glorification of capitalism and its associated culture of hyper-consumption. This makes sense as coupons are a tool of capitalism that are designed to increase profits by giving consumers an incentive to buy specific products. However, Extreme Couponing demonstrates perfectly how a tool of the capitalist system can be used to subvert and disrupt the very same system it is supposed to promote.
The extreme couponers unconsciously expose the contradictions of capitalism as they virtually pay nothing for the products that end up in their shopping cart. In most episodes, the couponers are able to purchase retail worth more than 600$ by only using hundreds of coupons and often not more than 10$. Consequently, the show illustrates how we as consumers can resist market forces, declare ourselves independent from the logic of profit and most importantly enjoy free stuff.
A further aspect worth exploring is the relationship between couponer and cashier. A person who has never watched an episode might naturally assume that the cashier disapproves of the couponer or is even hostile towards him. Nevertheless, the opposite is true, and it is not unusual for the cashiers to cheer-on the couponer. This feeling of sympathy stems from the cashier consciously or unconsciously recognizing that it is not the extreme couponer who exploits her/him, but rather the owner of the supermarket who is the culprit. Therefore, Extreme Couponing promotes not only sabotaging the capitalist system from within but also how to actively be engaged in class solidarity.
Extreme Couponing is unique in the reality TV landscape as it offers both quality entertainment and a blueprint for how to disrupt the machinery of capitalism. If the practice of extreme couponing is applied to a mass-scale it has the potential to become a serious threat towards big corporations that ruin communities, such as Walmart. Some might interject here that my argument is flawed as corporations would surely terminate their coupon policy. Yet, even the termination of the coupon policy would be a success. If a grocery-chain cancelled their coupon policy, they would either lose a significant amount of customers or have to lower its prices in a conventional manner. However, more importantly, it would force the corporation to admit that the relationship between supply and demand is characterized by tense conflict.
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