In “On Reading a Video Text,” Robert Scholes discusses the idea of cultural reinforcement within television commercials. Scholes claims that television commercials remind viewers of their social whereabouts and displays their association with society. Commercials are played year around and people have the chance to view and form their own values and beliefs based on what they see. For instance, Scholes blatantly describes to his audience that the Budweiser commercial from the 80s focuses on more than just advertising their product; they try selling a message. Two and a half decades later Budweiser is at it again. In a recent Super Bowl commercial they focus in on a similar aspect, the American Dream. Only this time it is a little more …show more content…
In Scholes’ essay he analyses an old Budweiser commercial from the 80s that shows an African American man chasing his dream of becoming a major league baseball umpire. Similar to what the man has already achieve in the recent Budweiser commercial with his small town, Missouri farm! Scholes breaks down this commercial in a unique way. Scholes challenges people to think past the common interpretation of commercials by providing information to disprove that it is just another lousy beer advertisement. Think about it…The black umpire in the Budweiser commercial that Scholes is referring to is faced with hardship right from the beginning. He is a black man that is trying to better himself in a society that is not fully acceptive of his complexion. On top of that he is pursuing a career that has been dominated by the white man since it has originated. In the more recent commercial, Budweiser also challenges the man by seeing how he deals with a setback of losing a close friend, the puppy. Scholes points out a crucial scene in the commercial when the black umpire is put to the ultimate test. He is faced with making the right decision on an extremely close call. The manager, a man depicted as a baseball fanatic, walks out of the dugout and gives the umpire an opportunity to prove he made the right call on the field. Scholes says, “We root for the umpire because we want the system to work — not just baseball but the whole …show more content…
It would not make sense for Budweiser to show the American Dream from a black man’s perspective anymore because people will have a hard time connecting to the message. African Americans are now accepted and have found their place in our society just like everyone else. Instead, Budweiser takes a different angle to catch people’s attention. The black man in the old commercial is now being played by a puppy. The reason for this is so everyone can relate to the underlying message. Budweiser is now attempting to appeal to their audience in a different kind of emotional
America’s pastime has been complicated in the last couple centuries, and integration has been a big key in the game of baseball. Like most of America in the 1940’s, baseball was segregated, with whites playing in the Major League system and African-Americans playing in the Negro Leagues. There were many factors that made whites and blacks come together, including World War II. Integration caused many downs in the time period, but as baseball grew and grew it was one of the greatest accomplishments in the history. It was hard to find the right black man to start this, they needed a man with baseball abilities and a man who didn’t need to fight back.
One of the major stands that were made during a black athlete’s tenure during his or her sport were their statements on racism. Racism in America was an ongoing situation in the 1900’s that seemed to have no resolve before black athletes took a stand. One prime example can be Jackie Robinson who became the first African-American athlete to play baseball in the modern era. Jackie grew up in one of the most racist towns in Pasadena, California and came from a poor family as his parents were sharecroppers and...
In this generation businesses use commercial to persuade different types of audiences to buy their product or to persuade them to help a certain caused. If you analyze commercial you can see how certain things play a major role in the success of a commercial. The ad I decide to analyze as an example is the commercial snickers used during the Super Bowl in 2010;”Betty White”-Snickers. This commercials starts off with guys playing a game of football with an elderly women know as Betty White. As Betty White tries to play football she is tackled to the ground. Her teammates refer to her as Mike when they come up to her to ask why she has been “playing like Betty White all day”. This helps inform the audience that Betty White is not actually playing but instead represent another teammate. As the guys keep arguing Mikes girlfriend calls her over and tells her to eat a snicker. Betty White takes the first bite and then suddenly a man appears in her place ready to finish the game. At the end of the commercial the statement "You're not you when you're hungry" is shown followed by the Snickers bar logo. What this commercial is trying to show is that hunger changes a person, and satisfying this hunger can change you back to your normal self. They use different types
Advertisements are one of many things that Americans cannot get away from. Every American sees an average of 3,000 advertisements a day; whether it’s on the television, radio, while surfing the internet, or while driving around town. Advertisements try to get consumers to buy their products by getting their attention. Most advertisements don’t have anything to do with the product itself. Every company has a different way of getting the public’s attention, but every advertisement has the same goal - to sell the product. Every advertisement tries to appeal to the audience by using ethos, pathos, and logos, while also focusing on who their audience is and the purpose of the ad. An example of this is a Charmin commercial where there is a bear who gets excited when he gets to use the toilet paper because it is so soft.
In terms of racial inequality in baseball there have been many eras of integration. Baseball originally is seen as America’s national game belonging to the white men of America. However, throughout history there have been steps taken in recognizing and integrating those groups deemed “less favorable” by the American community. These groups include German immigrants, Irish immigrants, African Americans, Latinos, Native Hawaiians, Native Americans, and Asians. America used the game of baseball as a tool to indoctrinate the American ideals and values of teamwork, working hard, and collaborating for the greater good into the cultures of the “uncivilized world.” These groups used baseball as a medium to gain acceptance into the American community as racially equal counterparts.
"Over the decades, African American teams played 445-recorded games against white teams, winning sixty-one percent of them." (Conrads, pg.8) The Negro Leagues were an alternative baseball group for African American baseball player that were denied the right to play with the white baseball payers in the Major League Baseball Association. In 1920, the first African American League was formed, and that paved the way for numerous African American innovation and movements. Fences, and Jackie Robinson: The Biography, raises consciousness about the baseball players that have been overlooked, and the struggle they had to endure simply because of their color.
The adage of the adage of the adage of the adage of the adage of the The African American quest for equity in sports. American sports: From the age of folk games to the age of televised sports (5th ed.). (pp. 62-63). The aforesaid aforesaid aforesaid aforesaid afores Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Spalding, Albert G. (n.d.).
Americans have long since depended on a falsified ideology of idealized life referred to as the American dream. The construct of this dream has become more elusive with the emergence of popular cultural advertisements that sell items promoting a highly gendered goal of achieving perfection. In “Masters of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising,” Jack Solomon states that ads are creating a “symbolic association between their products and what is most coveted by the consumer” to draw on the consumer’s desire to outwardly express high social standing (544). The American dream has sold the idea of equality between genders, races, and socioeconomic backgrounds, but advertisements have manipulated this concept entirely through representations
The commercial described in Scholes composition is a “well-known Budweiser commercial which tells…the life story of a black man pursuing a career as a baseball umpire” (Scholes, p. 620). Scholes feels that this commercial elegantly proves his theory that video texts can hold a viewer captive and control his thought pattern through the use of visual effects, narrativity, and of course, cultural reinforcement. The commercial itself tells the story of a young black man, working as an umpire in the minor baseball leagues, risen from the provinces, having overcome great racial tension throughout his life, who “makes it” as he is accepted by a white manager after making a close call during a game.
Historical and sociological research has shown, through much evidence collection and analysis of primary documents that the American sporting industry can give an accurate reflection, to a certain extent, of racial struggles and discrimination into the larger context of American society. To understand this stance, a deep look into aspects of sport beyond simply playing the game must be a primary focus. Since the integration of baseball, followed shortly after by American football, why are the numbers of African American owners, coaches and managers so very low? What accounts for the absence of African American candidates from seeking front office and managerial roles? Is a conscious decision made by established members of each organization or is this matter a deeper reflection on society? Why does a certain image and persona exist amongst many African American athletes? Sports historians often take a look at sports and make a comparison to society. Beginning in the early 1980’s, historians began looking at the integration of baseball and how it preceded the civil rights movement. The common conclusion was that integration in baseball and other sports was indeed a reflection on American society. As African Americans began to play in sports, a short time later, Jim Crow laws and segregation formally came to an end in the south. Does racism and discrimination end with the elimination of Jim Crow and the onset of the civil rights movement and other instances of race awareness and equality? According to many modern sports historians and sociologists, they do not. This paper will focus on the writings of selected historians and sociologists who examine th...
‘Field of Dreams’ is a diversified script that constantly evolves, but mainly revolves around the game of baseball, ‘the greatest game ever invented’. The game that according to some avid spectators, completely and thoroughly transcends and binds the country to past, present, and future--generation to generation. In this movie this national pastime represents an avenue that finds the connection to the soul of a great audience; somehow insinuating that baseball acts as a means of fulfilling individual spiritual needs. These needs are that of a ‘sense of belonging’, a need to participate in sport, either vicariously as a spectator or directly as a participant. Moreover the desire to engage in distraction and play may be intrinsic to the human psyche. The theme throughout the movie was based on the legendary story of the Chicago White Sox of 1919, where the question was raised on the issue of the team’s “sportsmanship” and the ethical behavior of several teammates during the World Series. This left the image of America’s most idolized team tarnished and lead up to a ban of eight players from the sport; for an ‘unsportsmanlike’ like conduct in the series. The public view of the game up until then was that of perfection, it was clean and straight; but afterwards, the lack of fair play especially coming from such highly ranked players, ended up affecting fans’ enthusiasm for the entire sport. As the movie nears its ending, Robinson evolved on the concept of having utterly devoted fans and as if in a mystified manner drew them in to this already mystical place, just to have them see the most idolized team of ‘the golden age’ play once again.
The video describes how our society may not even care about the product being advertised, but we still read the billboard or watch the commercial. Also mentioned was the use of colors in a commercial, the marketing effects in politics, and even market research obtained by studying different cults. Frontline takes an in-depth look at the multibillion-dollar “persuasion industries” of advertising and how this rhetoric affects everyone. So whether this is in the form of a television commercial or a billboard, pathos, logos, and ethos can be found in all advertisements.
Lanctot, Neil. 2004. Negro league baseball :The rise and ruin of a black institution. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
In a society filled with people that strongly believe that sports is an industry that is removed and immune from the ills of the world—racism. Many fans and spectators of sports, such as baseball, basketball, football, and many other sports that include players of different races and ethnicities considers that racism is a thing of the past because of the inclusion and acceptance of all races in different sports. However, the misconception of living in a post-racial (colorblind) world is prevalent. Even though racial discrimination in sports and society in general, are not overt as in the past, racism continues to plague the industry. Regardless of fans and spectators wanting to ignore the racial biases and discrimination in the sports industry,
“The average family is bombarded with 1,100 advertisements per day … people only remembered three or four of them”. Fiske’s uses an example of kids singing Razzmatazz a jingle for brand of tights at a woman in a mini skirt. This displayed to the reader that people are not mindless consumers; they modify the commodity for their use. He rejects that the audiences are helpless subjects of unconscious consumerism. In contrast to McDonald’s, Fiske’s quoted “they were using the ads for their own cheeky resistive subculture” he added. He believed that instead of being submissive they twisted the ad into their own take on popular culture (Fiske, 1989, p. 31)