If there is no such word as plutography then there should be. How else can one explain a magazine like Architectural Digest? The reader (or viewer/voyeur–since the magazine is basically a photo book) wallows in the conspicuous consumption of plutocrats. There is something creepily pornographic in the portrayal of these multi zillion dollar homes and apartments. What the photos arouse in HG, however, is not lust but the full force of the angry left wing feelings of HG’s student days. “To the barricades, citizens,” HG feels like shouting. The owners of the burnished palaces in AD don’t make anything except money. They are financiers, money managers, hedge fund executives, and investors. Though each palace has a huge, lovingly photographed kitchen, HG refuses to believes that any real cooking (or eating) goes on there. These aren’t homes. They’re statements. And, the statement is: “I am rich. Very, very rich.” (Please enlarge the photo below. No, this isn’t a posh shop on Madison Avenue, Rodeo Drive or Rue St. Honore. It is one rich woman’s dressing room complete with an illuminated floating rack of handbags. Grotesque, says HG).
