Taylor Swift and the Media 12/21/14

A few minutes ago, I was sitting here and wondering what I should do for my media blog.  I was sitting on my bed listening to Taylor Swift (*cough* DEREK *cough*), and I realized how much the media is a part of what Taylor Swift sings about and how she is portrayed.  Almost all of her songs are about romance.  She herself is creating media in this situation and is giving little girls the ideas that they need a boy in their life or they will be sad.  To be fair though, some of her songs argue for self empowerment, which is great, but it still revolves around what having a guy in your life does to you.  

I remember being in 2nd or 3rd grade and singing her songs and wishing for a guy to be nice, just the way Taylor sings about them in some of her happier songs like "Love Story."  The prevalence of Taylor Swift in media defiantly used to shape the way I saw myself and how I looked at the boys in my life.  

Recently Taylor Swift has also been showing how much she understands that the media is influencing both her, her music, and her fans.  She has recently come out with some songs as messages to her fans to be true to themselves and to not care about that others think. In this way she is saying not to pay attention to any media that is influencing you and to be yourself.  I find this a little hypocritical.  After all, SHE  is media, yet at the same time she is telling us not to listen to the media?  Examples of this is her song, "Blank Space" and "Mean."  "Mean" is a song about her media critics critiquing her and her telling herself (and her fans) not to be affected by them.  "Blank Space" is about how the media always portrays her boy crazy, so she is purposely trying to sound crazy to mock the media's image of her.  

mooks and midriffs 12/21/14

I recently began watching Grey's Anatomy on Netfix.  After watching Merchants of Cool, I found many similarities between two of the characters and the ideas of the nook and midriff.  Alex Karev is one of the main characters in the show.  He is very rude and acts very much like a child in many situations early on in the show.  His character is attractive, making him appeal to a lot of the audience so that they will continue to watch the show.  He is "stuck in adolescence" since he is very impulsive. Though he is a doctor and has to make good decisions for the welfare of this patients, he often messes up in both his work and personal life.  For example, when he was dating Izzy Stevens on the show, he decides to sleep with another girl just because he could.  His personality embodies the concept of a mook as described in Merchants of Cool.  

The character who reminds me of the midriff persona is Izzy Stevens.  She used to be a model but is now a doctor.  Later on the show we learn that she only became a model to pay her way through college and medical school.  We learn that she used to act much older than her age during that period of time that she modeled.  She was only entering college, but she did many photo shoots in lingerie.  In the pictures that are shown of her modeling, she looks like she is trying to be older than she is.  The charter herself looks very young and innocent, so it embodies the idea of a midriff when she was shown modeling lingerie in her late teens and early 20s.  A midriff also seems sort of spicy and not that smart, and in the beginning of the show the other characters assumed that because she was a model, playing into the stereotype of a midriff.  

Product Placement in The Office 12/14/14

My favorite thing to watch on TV is The Office.  For those who don't know, it is a series about people filming a fake documentary about normal people in a paper company in Pennsylvania.  Along with being hilarious and entertaining, The Office also has product placement embedded in its episodes.  Staples is a major company that appears on many episodes.  In the image above, Dwight has left Dunder Mifflin (his original paper company) and took a job at Staples.  By sending one of the show's most loved and funniest characters to Staples, this is conveying the message that Staples is a place where hilarious and lovable people work.  This is also saying that Staples environment is a fun one to shop in because you could run into people just like Dwight working there.

This is another clip of the show that uses Staples as product placement.  The part from the episode runs from 0:06-1:18.  In this segment, Kevin (one of the dumber people working at the office) is given the task of shredding paper for the office.  Kevin begins by saying that shredding the company documents is "really all I need."  This feeling of happiness Kevin says he gets when he shreds paper then gives the consumer the impression that buying a Staples paper shredder is not only easy (because a dumb member of The Office can use it) but it is also an enjoyable experience, which is something that cannot necessarily be said for other paper shredders.  The clip then jumps to images of Kevin shredding multiple things such as paper, cds, and his credit card in his shredder saying that the shredder can "shred anything."  This demonstrates Staples reliability and good features that its products have.  The scene ends by using more wit and humor-- Kevin shreds a piece of lettuce to make a salad.  Another coworker walks by and asks him where he got the salad and Kevin responds, "Staples."  This makes the consumer focus on the product and for the first times makes them attach a name to the product being shown.  It was a clever way to market their shredder.  I thought it was funny and conveyed the messages that they wanted to send well.

My favorite ad EVER 12/7/14

As you can tell by the title, this is my FAVORITE AD EVER.  This is the ad for the New York City Ballet's 2014-2015 season.  I think it is the most beautiful ad ever created, so I just wanted to share the loveliness of this ad with you and explain why it is so amazing.

This video is shown as an ad before youtube videos, so many people see it before they watch their videos on youtube.  It is a promotion for the New York City Ballet.  The company took videos of some of their performances and put together a video to the score of one of their newest ballets.  If you are not familiar with ballet, this ad still appeals to your "need for aesthetic sensations."  It is a beautiful video, and the classical ballet in it, along with the classical music, "makes us feel creative and enhances" according to Jib Fowles, who created the 15 Basic Appeals of Advertising.

Techniques used are testimonials, gestalt, and perhaps transfer/association.  The ad essentially uses testimonials of all the dancers in the ad.  In the ballet world, the dancers from the NYCB (New York City Ballet) are famous because they are so precise and wonderful to watch.  By incorporating famous dancers in the ad (Sara Mearns, Tyler Peck, etc), people may feel inclined to come and watch because they are in it.  This technique does not work though it the person watching the commercial has no idea who the dancers are though.  The ad also uses gestalt because of the strange camera angles.  It makes the person watching the commercial feel as if they are actually backstage with the NYCB and allows them to see the dancers on and off stage.  These moments captured by the intimate camera angles may encourage people to come and see the company to feel that emotion again.  This also may use the technique of transfer/association.  If the person felt happy or a strong emotion watching the commercial, he or she may want to go back to the ballet to feel that again.  This would not work as a technique though if the watcher did not like what he or she saw or was bored by the video.

Advertisements for a Ballet Dancer (print media) 12/7/14

Though in Mr. Starace's class we spend a long time pondering our relationship with ads found in beauty magazines, billboards, and commercials on TV, I want to bring to light the ballet dancer's equivalent to those kind of ads.  To generalize, ballet dancers are very particular about how they look in regards to the kind of pointe shoes they wear and what kinds of leotards they own; after all, they are judged on every aspect of their body and technique just to get a job.  Just as many women these days will try just about anything to achieve perfect makeup and hair to look flawless, ballet dancers try a plethora of products to attain a "perfect ballet body" to boost their odds of being hired by a company.  As I alluded to above, one of the most commonly advertised methods of becoming a more beautiful dancer and therefore a better candidate for a job is pointe shoes.

The ad at the top of the page is for a company that sells pointe shoes.  In their ad, they use many techniques and appeals to tempt to dancers to buy their kind of pointe shoes.  They use the appeal of "Need to achieve" to do this.  Their slogan at the top of the ad reads, "It's amazing what goes into making something effortless."  This conveys the feeling that if a dancer wears this shoe (and still practices hard) she will achieve greatness, just like the dancer in the picture below.  Dancers try to be the best that they can, and if a shoe promises results like those seen in the ad, a dancer may be more inclined to buy it.  

This ad uses the techniques of gestalt and a testimonial to convince the reader to buy the product.  The ballet dancer's red leotard makes her stand out. Because of this, she stands out, and the ad may be remembered easier than others.  Also, the company chose to use principal dancer Amy Watson to be the model for this ad.  Watson is known to be a beautiful dancer who is very elegant and graceful when she dances.  By using this dancer, the company is saying that if you wear these pointe shoes, you can dance as gracefully and as elegantly as Amy Watson.  

Just for fun, here is a picture of me rehearsing for Nutcracker.  I do not wear the pointe shoes this ad is advertising for though...