The Signified

Taking a look at three of my classmates political commercials that have many signifiers in common. An example of this is the American Flag which appears in the commercials to symbolize the American Patriotism that each candidate is trying to exude.  

Starting with the American Flag waving this commercial is overflowing with signifiers. Another signifier is the picture of the dictators that are supposed to signify that the candidate is not trustworthy and is trying to take over our society. The criminal and zombie are signifiers of the dangerous things that could come threaten your home, making you think about the safety of your household without guns. The last signifier is the Picture of Obama with the big red cross through him. This is an obvious signifier which means not to trust or vote for this man. 

Three of the many signifiers as seen in this advertisement are the words, "Pull the trigger and hit the target every time," the state of West Virginia, and Harry marching in the tea party. The first signifier the quotation in the commercial expresses the feelings on gun control as well as showing that he is a regular man and not just a high paid politician. The next signifier is the picture of the state of West Virginia. This signifies the state that the candidate is running from and then leads into explaining that he is running to be the governor from that state. 

This political campaign commercial for Michelle Bachmann has come very cool signifiers. One being the Starbucks coffee gun picture. This picture is one that signifies that guns should be a part of everyday just like your morning coffee but also that they should be legal to have everywhere. The upbeat and very motivational music is another signifier that tells me that this candidate has a bright disposition and a strong candidate. The last signifier is the photo of Michelle standing at the podium smiling with her hand held high waving at the audience. This picture has patriotism and makes her look like a reliable and trustworthy person who is looking out for you. 

The kid from class.

Recently in class we discussed the website cracked.com that claims to be America's Only Humor Site Since 1958. Travis the student from class discussed an article on the humorous website called  "5 Bad Ideas for Dealing With Bullies You Learned in Movies" he expressed that the article was outside of the typical funny material and was a real bummer. I think the article fits in perfectly with the other sarcastic and funny material that is on the website. The article has a lot of humorous statements in it for example the 4th bad idea,"Just ignore them" is more for the verbally abusive situations. Let's be honest, it's pretty hard to ignore a rage-fueled sociopath throwing elbows into your kidneys."

I dont feel like there would have been a better way to manage the content because it fits with the website and really wasn't outside the typical website content. This first paragraph even states that fans of the webpage had requested for the bullying topic to get some play. 

"Your life should never flash in front of your eyes before you've lost your virginity."

Read more: 5 Bad Ideas for Dealing With Bullies You Learned in Movies | Cracked.com http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-bad-ideas-dealing-with-bullies-you-learned-in-movies/#ixzz1Zj9PHUlX

Beautiful girls all over the world. . .

In the documentary Dreamworlds by Sut Jhally he describes the idea of a perfect woman for a music video vixen, a bimbo with dreams of having a man and a cold shower.  Although many artists make videos that are centered around the idea that women are these wet dream sex objects and ready for a man to scoop then up and take them to bed, there are many artists that show respect to the beauty of women. A great example of a music video that doesn't quite fit the mold of the dream women as represented Jhally's film, is music video for the song Nothin' On You by B.o.B feat. Bruno Mars. 

Many of the things that were discussed in the Dreamworlds film are not in the video first of which is the idea that women hunt men in packs and are always hot and horny. In the video it is made clear that women are predators who are on the prowl in packs to get men. In this video women are portrayed as much less sexual creatures, another example of this is that the women that are shown in the video are shown as women who are not dressed provocatively unlike the women in Jhally's video which showed most women in some type of swim suit, lingerie, or dominatrix outfit.

Sut Jhally had also made a case that the camera angles could portray the women in a sexual manner by either panning the women's body, zooming in to a sexual body part, looking from a distance at a silhouette, and avoiding to give the female a face/identity. The video Nothin' On You seems to do quite the opposite, not only do the woman not seem like sexual deviants but the beauty of the women's face is one of the most important traits that the camera is trying to capture. 

Please don't kill LeBron.

When looking at ads in can be very difficult to understand the intended meaning due to our cultural and ideological views. Katherine Frith provides us with a way of analyzing the layers of meaning in ads helping us decipher the advertisers intended meaning verse the cultural meaning of the ad. First by describing the surface meaning then the intended meaning and lastly the cultural or idealogical meaning of the advertisement. Due to my love of basketball and all things LeBron James I have decided to analyze a LeBron James advertisement.

When looking at the surface meaning of the Nike advertisement that I've chosen to analyze it is very easy to see the words, "Please, don't kill me" in the middle of the image, a large black man in a white sports jersey holding a basketball, and the words "Chron-illogical Disorder" very small in the lower left corner. 

Looking a little deeper into the advertisers intended meaning it is quite obvious that they are using the idea of transference by using a well known NBA Superstar as the man for the ad. Saying that this product can make you play basketball as good as LeBron can. 

The words in the advertisement are the key when looking at the cultural meaning. Not only is it LeBron James but the advertisement used the term "chron-illogical disorder" in this case it is obviously used as an urban term. When looking up "chron-illogical" it can be seen as a person who smokes to much chronic and loses all sense of reason or an "ill" person or skill which means sick, awesome, sweet, or fly. Both of these definitions culturally make the product more desirable. In the picture there are also numerous NBA symbols which associates the Nike product with the NBA which is every basketball players dream. Also in the eyes of a women there can be a sex appeal to how strong the picture makes LeBron look influencing their opinion of the ad.

There aint no bugs on me!

In my eyes there is a big difference between a good commercial and a successful ad campaign. When a good commercial comes on I might not change the channel quite as quickly as I normally do, but there are some commercials that stand out above all the rest with their celebrity endorser, humor, or jingle. They're the advertisements that I don't just watch on TV or cut out of magazines but ones that I share to my Facebook wall and want all the rest of my friends to enjoy just as much as I have.

One of the best examples I can provide of this type of advertisement campaign is the K-9 Advantix commercials, which stars a tick free labrador puppy who entertains and informs watchers about the flea and tick removal product. Not only does the cute singing puppy appeal to children but to people of all ages alike and part of that is because of the catchy and adorable lyrics the puppy sings about his tick free coat.

Photo by Thomas Tamayo (Malweth)

Now that the dog has been the star of multiple commercials it is being sold as a plush stuffed animal with the K-9 Advantix bandana around its neck proving to me that using the puppy for the advertising campaign is very successful.

"There may be bugs on some of you mugs but their aint no bugs on me!"