CHAPTER SIX SUMMARY
Advertising moves commerce and has become a central way of communicating social values. Department stores use a visual display of goods in a way to show ideologies of what one should be like while using/wearing these goods. Department stores use advertising tequilas to make it shopping be displayed as a leisure activity. Ideas took shape that everyone was inadequate and could be improved, which could be done through the purchase of goods. Advertising is only one part of a whole system that companies use to seek products. Marketing, product and other sales tequilas all combine to aid in consumer sales. Commodity fetishism is a term used to describe the way that consumers feel when they think they "need" something to improve their lives in some way. Advertisers try to tell consumers that buying their products will make them individuals when it actually promotes homogeneity. Presumption of Relevance means that a consumer actually somewhere in their mind thinks that they will have a dramatic life change if they have that specific product. Text can be just as powerful as pictures by the way that is shocks the audience. Marketers use techniques to make readers desire products by making them desire to be like those in the ads (and visa versa for the opposite intended reaction), they also use memory and nostalgia to sell products. Identity no longer is a signifier, but instead the actual consumed product. All in all, many different modes of advertising as used to sell products. Ad's can be politically driven, empowering, demeaning, and often are meant to show some kind of idealized situation in which the costumer is meant to want and in turn purchase a product. Critical Question: In what way was the idea of "commodity fetishism" used to develop the character of Lisa in "Rear Window"? Do you feel as though Hitchcock uses this in a way to show Lisa in a positive or negative way? Why?
CHAPTER THREE SUMMARY
This chapter discusses how ideologies are made by the media. I talks about how women and men intake certain ideologies through seeing them personalized through film. The male gaze is a way that film simplifies women making them seem less important than men through cinematography. This isn't seen in just cinematography, but is also seem in other aspects of visual pop culture. The camera woks as the gaze in order to let the viewer see what the person behind the camera wants them to see. It is important to remember when looking at a photograph, design, or film, that the audience is only seeing what the director wants them to see, in the context that he wants them to see it. This usage of the camera helps aid in advertising, and film, creating ideologies in the audience's head, which is turn usually is meant to benefit the director, company behind the images.
Critical Question: In what way does the camera act as a lens in the movie "Rear Window". What kind of character development does he make through use of the camera?
WEEK ONE:
ReplyDeleteThe two chapters read on symbols and meaning got severely in depth about the science and phycology behind images, sounds and other “symbols” which are decoded by the reader. A representation is when something is used to “represent” something else, but is not representing the actual thing. The article discussed how ideologies are totally made by the social constructs set in place by popular culture, and these ideologies can be seen as icons and symbols. I was surprised to hear about the fact that a sign is composed of two parts, the sensual signifier and a interpreted meaning, An icon is considered “culturally valuable” because it is a visual statement about popular cultural themes without the use of words or written text. For example, Marilyn Monroe is an icon for sex even though the reader isn’t actually seeing sex. Symbols are all made based on the social environment in which the reader is from. This means that the way an image is read by one person is not necessarily the way it will be read by another person who was raised in a different way. Symbols and signs are constantly used to manipulate the reader into feeling thinking r acting a certain way, without making them realize it was done by imagery and tone.
Critical Question: What signs were used in the propaganda clips from the film “Rosie the Riveter” and what were their intended purposes? Do you feel as though the ones who made the propaganda succeeded? Why or why not?
The signs that were used in the clips were that of women working in the factories and doing the work to help the war effort and do their patriotic duty. The propaganda clips had shown that women should not remain idle during the times of war and do whatever they can to support the troops. They did succeed in their efforts because the women interviewed in the movie did feel a sense of duty during this time to continue their work even when they were treated unfairly and continued to work long hours even though they sacrificed their familes and lives at home to do it. The women that were filmed were also under financial stress in the first place and the promise of good work motivated them as well to leave their current situations and look for something more profitable and lucrative.
ReplyDelete