Apple 1984 Rhetorical Devices

Apple’s Super Bowl commercial “1984” has been widely regarded as one of the most popular and influential commercials in advertising history, and the purpose of this commercial was to get the citizens of this era out of the mindset that technology like this is a hindrance but instead is actually helpful. Not everyone agreed with this though, with some people still questioning the ethicality of this commercial, but the visual text is ethical for its promotion of individuality and its appeal to a wide variety of audiences.

Let’s start off by talking about what happened in this very famous commercial. Apple 1984 starts off in a dark gray setting with lines of mindless people marching towards a large television screen with an evil dictator on it,

who is presumable controlling everyone. This dictator starts giving a speech telling everyone, “Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives.” When all the people have gathered into the large room you can see a beautiful woman in red and white carrying a sledgehammer while running away from a lot of intimidating police officers in full riot gear, and while the woman is running away from the police officers the dictator continues giving his speech to everyone saying that this is the start of a brand new age of one ideology. Then suddenly the woman runs up to the TV screen gives out a mighty yell directed at the monitor then she throws her sledgehammer at it destroying the TV, but before it was being destroyed you can hear the dictator shout the words “We shall prevail”. After the sledgehammer crushes the TV screen it releases a bright white light that floods the entire room leaving everyone in awe of how beautiful it is. Then the commercial ends with the text, “On January 24th Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like '1984'.”

Apple uses the ideas of individuality in their commercial “1984” to successfully meet the ethical standards of today’s society.

The screen shot of the muscular woman in red and white displays this through her efforts to free the mindless drones by throwing her sledgehammer at the dictator that is controlling them. In this screen shot you can see that every person in the background looks like they are lost with no idea of who they are, but you can see that the woman is trying to break everyone free from this life style and tell them that it is okay to stand out. No one wants to look exactly the same as everyone else. We all want to express ourselves so we can live our lives to the fullest. The use of this courageous woman allows us to see that everyone should be able to express their own individual ideals and not be forced to carry out or embrace the twisted ideals of some evil dictator or government and that we, the people, have the power to break free from our shackles and show everyone that it is okay to look different from other people and express your individuality to everyone around you. The visual text’s expression of the ethical ideal of individualism is very apparent in a strong woman like the one in this visual text but there is more one than place in this commercial where you can argue for this and it is found in a very unexpected

place.

Further evidence of the author’s use of individuality can be seen with the speech that the dictator is giving while the woman is running after him. When he is giving his speech to all of his mindless minions he starts to say, “Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives we have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology—where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests purveying contradictory truths (Apple 1984).” With the words information purification directives there is no doubt that all of these people had entire being taken from them, that this totalitarian like society is forcing there will upon their citizens. Forcing them to give up their own identity so they benefit the ideals of one person. All of this seemingly goes along with the strong independent woman trying to help these mindless people. The words that the dictator says is like fuel that lights the fire with her, giving her even more resolve than she already had so she could free all of the people that are being treated like rabble who are being forced to accept one form of ideology. We should all be able to make our own choices and choose our own path and not simply be the means to an end of some tyrannical government or ruthless dictator. This visual text meets the ethical standards of human nature by promoting and appealing to the natural right of individuality, but another key part to this commercial is the audience that apple is aiming at.

Apple’s 1984 Super Bowl commercial appeal to audience of the average hard working person is also a key way in how the visual text meets ethical standards. When apple was making this commercial they needed to appeal a wider audience then they usually do because back in this era, there was people who were still wary of all the technology, with its look of being for mainly the upper class type of people. To do this they used symbolism to get this message across, by using the woman to represent the younger adults and then using the sledgehammer to represent the hard working middle class citizens of that generation. (Johnson) This connection between the sledgehammer the average worker can be made the because hammer like that is meant for physical labor than other types of work which makes it a good and clever way to make the connection between the two. By appealing to all of these types of people Apple gives off the impression that technology is not just for the wealthy corporations like their competition IBM, but that technology should be used by everyone from the rich business man to average hard worker. The connection that this visual text makes to different types of audiences helps this piece meet regular ethical standards.

Apple’s 1984 commercial without a doubt meet the ethical standards that we abide to in today’s society, but that doesn’t mean there cannot be any improvements though. One suggestion for the visual text is that you could end the commercial with actually showing everyone regain the parts of themselves that they lost so it could be even better than it already is.