Sunday, October 19, 2014

Deadly Sin(s) in Advertising

Setu Advertising
January 2012
India

This advertisement, by a company called Setu Advertising, uses lust to try to appeal to the viewers of the advertisement. They are trying to promote Krome's product (the couch and other furniture) by playing off people's desires.

The picture all black and white except for the red on the woman's clothing and the couch. The background around the woman and the couch is very dark and gloomy looking with a few silhouettes on the horizon.  There is a fence behind the couch and books strewn across the ground. the woman is also reading the book in a very strange and seductive looking position. The main text of the advertisement says, "Every piece has a story."

This advertisement uses lust because the author chose to only include the color red in the picture. Red tends to associated with sexual desire, and by making the product being advertised red it associates the couch with lust also. The woman's position and tight clothing makes the advertisement seem like it is targeting men and trying to make them feel lust for the woman and relate that to the experiences they could get from purchasing the couch. This is backed by the text of the advertisement that says, "Every piece has a story" because it is possibly suggesting that the couch could produce a lustful experience. The atmosphere creates an environment that can be compared to a post-apocalyptic world, which could suggest that experiences that the couch will produce will be private and without intrusion. The audience is probably meant to be comprised of  single, home owning men in India because it was released in India and is playing on the sexual desires of men who would have to own a home to put the couch in.

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Canterbury Jane and Eyre Tales

Response to Statement Number Five:

The author creates contrast through the description of the members of his family by having them come in after he lectures Miss Temple. He is lecturing her on how the orphan girls should look and what privileges they should have access to. He says that the girls should not have long or curling hair and that they should not have their clothes washed too often.  There is contrast in this because Mr. Brocklehurst’s family members are all doing precisely what he said the orphan girls should not be allowed to do. One of Mr. Brocklehurst’s family members was described like this: “from under the brim of this graceful head-dress fell a profusion of light tresses, elaborately curled.” This aspect of his family member was the exact same thing that he had denounced moments before, “Why has she, or any other, curled hair? Why, in defiance of every precept and principle of this house, does she conform to the world so openly—here in an evangelical, charitable establishment—as to wear her hair one mass of curls?”

Mr. Brocklehurst makes it apparent that he wants all of the orphan girls to live very modestly because they are “the children of Grace,” but he does not even seem to hold his own family members to the same standard. This shows irony because Mr. Brocklehurst’s family members are all shown to be living very luxurious and privileged lifestyles even though Mr. Brocklehurst made it clear that he values modesty. This is a way for the author to comment on the differences in classes by showing the upper class (Mr. Brocklehurst) and its hypocrisy through the way that the upper class says others should live, and how they live the exact opposite way.