Capitalism Is Coming for Your Literal Dreams

You Need This, a new documentary produced by Adam McKay, tracks the long march of consumer society from postwar suburbia to the sleeping mind.

Still from You Need This. (Grasshopper Film / Hotel Motion Pictures)


Consider the sudden appearance of a product called full-body deodorant on a store shelf near you. In the past couple of years, newer hygiene brands such as Lume and Mando, as well as legacy giants such as Secret, Dove, and Old Spice, have begun flooding television and social media with a blunt proposition: your armpits were the least of your problems.

The ads promised sticks, sprays, and creams that could combat odor everywhere, from “pits, privates, underboobs, and feet” to the chest and hands. Dermatologists were largely baffled. On both philosophical and practical levels, no, you do not need a full-body deodorant. If you bathe regularly, soap and water will serve you fine. But necessity, as consumer capitalism well understands, has almost nothing to do with it.

This is precisely the kind of moment that Ryan Andrej Lough’s documentary You Need This was made for. Produced by Adam McKay, Lough’s documentary, now streaming on Amazon Prime and Apple TV, traces the past and present of America’s century-long romance with capitalism and the psychic, social, and planetary wreckage it leaves in its wake. It’s “the worst thing to ever happen to our planet,” the film concludes.

This article is for subscribers only. Please login or subscribe to access our full archives and beautiful print and digital magazine starting at just $3 a month.