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Abstract

In this paper, I examine the creation of prop“non-brands”in the United States movie and television industry. In taking up thework of Independent Studio Services, a large prop house located in California, I look to howfictive and generic alternatives to“real”brands replicate brandedness without any brand. As product placement in movies and television becomes increasinglyimportant as a form of brand promotion, the prop-brand cuts out a unique semiotic space in which a particular ideology ofthe generic is constituted. Such spaces of the generically marked and unmarked are, however, of much broader importance toanthropological and social theory. Reaching far beyond branding, the generic exists as a conceptual space in which we can un-derstand the world of short-hands, blueprints, and proxies, and how they serve as conduits for universal and generalizable formsof knowledge.