Saw this on my Facebook last night… Not that Emma Watson isn’t super stylish, but out of everything she’s accomplished in her life Elle is just going to focus on her clothes? Emma has been a part of one of the most successful movie franchises in history, she has a degree from Brown, she’s fighting so hard for gender equality, and she even helped launch the HeForShe campaign, and all Elle wants to do to celebrate her birthday is talk about her style? Emma is a great role model for younger girls (or at least in my opinion), and I think that some of her bigger accomplishments should be featured since she has done so much beyond just acting and being pretty. I know the audience for this magazine probably wants to see style, but I think that a celebration of someone’s life (Pretty much what a birthday is) should at least include some of their greatest accomplishments… even if they aren’t the main feature.
*Yes I am aware that one of the outfits is from one of something she wore for a HeForShe speech, but there was no real explanation as to what the event was, or why she was involved. It was just about the dress.
Emma has always been a role model to me. Seeing this article gets me a little flustered because you’re right- there’s SO much more to her than just her wardrobe (even though it rocks). But then again, Elle IS predominantly a fashion platform and that’s what the readers want to see. They want to hot “goss” and what’s in/out of fashion. Still, it’s a little odd to try to overshadow Watson’s accomplishments with what’s in her closet. Rather than talking about what Watson did, Elle focuses on what she wore to the thing that she did. Kinda funny lol. But this is a good example to show how different types of media manipulate a story to appeal to their certain audience!
I’m going to agree w/ j0ykim and then some on this one. Elle is a fashion magazine. It makes perfect sense for them to focus only on her with regard to style. I would think it’s weird if they had too much of anything else? They know what their audience wants and it would be a disservice to ignore their niche.
Since our group discussions (both small and large) in class, I’ve been thinking a lot about bias when talking about, writing about, and generally discussing such emotionally charged events.
Bias is unavoidable. Every word written and spoken is a choice, and whether or not you’re able to admit it to others or even to yourself, that choice is affected by the way you think and what you think about. To me, the real question is how should we, Texans, Americans, Worlders, deal with this striking reality. There are, as I see it, two basic approaches: we can make a conscious effort to write and speak as neutrally as possible, or we can accept our biases and try to seek out and share as many differing points of view as possible. I have no idea which discourse is best, if there is a best. There are cases, such as this Wikipedia article, that seem to lend themselves to the neutral, cut and dry facts style, but there are many cases where the best decision is unclear. Should the news edge away from opinionated reporting or should they accept their bias and try to play a ten way split devil’s advocate. Every point of view can’t be accounted for, so should we try to talk about as many as we can or should we group similar points of view into a charicature resembling many opinions but matching relatively few.
My opinion has yet to fully form. I do not know the answers. I probably will never “know” the answers, but hopefully through discussion and experience, we can all come a little closer to them. And if they don’t exist, maybe we can come closer to understanding as many differing points of view as is manageable.
I found this image this week and thought it was relevant to everything we have been reading related to Ferguson. The author of the image is very clever in comparing an angry bear to the way police men treat black people.
At first I believed this image was something that the author had found and worked over, but after a quick Google image search, I was not able to find an original, so I think the author made the entire thing.
Even though this might not be “authentic” because it pretends to be something that it is not, the author used this idea to be able convey his or her message across. The infographic makes police officers seem like a threat for black people, in an almost humorous way, but the joke stops when we realize that this is actually true, and what is being shown in the image could actually be applied in real life to survive an encounter with an officer…
I think this would have been even stronger if it was actually found and then altered as opposed to being made with the end result in mind. In either case, the parallels are very clever.
In an infomercial, the clips are not made to be used and then reused time and time again. Instead, the video is made with a specific product or service in mind and is tailored to sell such a product. Why then, do these video clips feel so similar to so many of the stock photographs that we see in our day to day lives. I’d say it’s probably because a stock photo is meant to sell itself and the video genre I’m talking about is meant to sell a product, but both texts aim to sell to the same public as best as they can: the general public. Though, the general public may be a myth in reality, it isn't a myth insofar as people can still /try/ to reach it. Yes, infomercials have an audience in mind that are more likely to buy their product, but the truth of the matter is that they still just want to sell a shitload of crap to as many people as they can find. It’s this search for the largest audience fueled by making small amounts of money made a million times over that lends itself to a stylistic overlap. Just like infomercials are usually selling an okay product that seemingly anyone can utilize, stock photography also sells okay photos that seemingly anyone can utilize.
Buczynski, Beth. "Is Meat The World's Most Inefficient Food?" Is Meat The World's Most Inefficient Food? Care2, 12 July 2012. Web. 18 Mar. 2015. <http://www.care2.com/causes/is-meat-the-worlds-most-inefficient-food.html>.
The article and infographic are not extremely in depth, but cover the basics of several downsides to the production of meat. The article covers the meat industry’s effects on global warming, and inefficient land and water usage. The publisher of the article seems fairly left wing, having other tabs relating to women’s rights, LGBT rights and animal rights. From this it can be inferred that the audience will also be mostly liberal. Since the author and readers will for the most part be liberal, there is a lack of opposition which is going to lend itself to a clear liberal bias. Despite this bias, their argument is factual, compelling, and provides seemingly reputable sources. The source as a whole is making an argument similar to the one I will be making, but to an older and more liberal audience than I want to approach.
"Is Meat Sustainable?" Is Meat Sustainable? Worldwatch Institute, July-Aug. 2004. Web. 18 Mar. 2015. <http://www.worldwatch.org/node/549>.
This article, much more in depth than the previous one, is geared toward people, likely in or beyond college, that are already familiar with the issues being discussed. The article has in depth discussion of water waste, land usage, effects on global warming, deforestation as well as lifestyle improvements that come with switching away from a meat based diet, all of which are relevant to my argument. The article was originally published in Worldwatch Magazine, readers/subscribers of which are likely already informed on environmental issues having to do with sustainable food and so the article was written with such an audience in mind. The writer is clearly in favor of weaning the population off of meat in favor of more efficient food stuffs and argues their point effectively in a clear and detailed manner.
"U.S. Could Feed 800 Million People with Grain That Livestock Eat, Cornell Ecologist Advises Animal Scientists | Cornell Chronicle." U.S. Could Feed 800 Million People with Grain That Livestock Eat, Cornell Ecologist Advises Animal Scientists | Cornell Chronicle. Cornell Chronicle, 7 Aug. 1997. Web. 18 Mar. 2015. <http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat>.
This source focuses on the amount of grain wasted feeding livestock and posits that such an abundant amount of grain would be better used to feed people. The main argument is that the US currently grows enough food to end world hunger, but instead of doing so uses said food to feed livestock. There is a focus on comparative ratios between meat based and vegetarian diets that illustrate that vegetarianism is clearly more efficient. The article is written for a college publication and so is likely intended to be read by college students and others involved in collegiate academia. The article is older, from the late 90s, so the numbers are likely not up to date, but the essence of the argument should have held true and so yields valuable insight to be used for my final project.
Shah, Anup. “Beef.” Global Issues. 22 Aug. 2010. Web. 18 Mar. 2015. <http://www.globalissues.org/article/240/beef>.
This article is published on a website that focuses on global issues and is written toward an international audience seeking a global perspective. The source gives a number of statistics up front to contextualize the rest of the article. It then proceeds to curate a number of quotes from a variety of sources in order to give the reader a well-rounded view of the issue. While the sources are from a variety of publications, they all seem to be in favor of a lessened use of meat. The author is giving a less biased account that other articles of the same vein, confronting issues regarding positive outcomes from the meat industry including jobs creation, an important issue to much of America. This article will aid my efforts to reveal and confront opposing views in my final project.
Tina. "Global Hunger: The More Meat We Eat, the Fewer People We Can Feed." Global Hunger: The More Meat We Eat, the Fewer People We Can Feed | Earthoria. Earthoria, 25 Mar. 2008. Web. 18 Mar. 2015. <http://www.earthoria.com/global-hunger-the-more-meat-we-eat-the-fewer-people-we-can-feed.html>.
This article focuses on the idea mentioned in a previous source that the US grows enough food to end world hunger, but continues to not do so. The source has a brief and not-very-detailed overview of the statistics proving the vastly superior efficiency of vegetarian diets when compared to their meat based counterparts. The main relevance of the article to my final project is that is directly claims that the United States is capable of ending world hunger, introducing one of the most highly charged ethical dilemmas of my project- all other arguments aside, should not we stop eating meat just to save the hundreds of millions of hungry citizens of the world from dying of starvation?
I want to use my final project to argue against the use of meat as a source of food. Meat, especially beef, is extremely inefficient in its use of land, energy and water. Land and energy that can be better used to produce plant food and clean, fresh water that can be used to quench the thirst of those that go without a steady supply of water around the world every single day. The focus will be on conveying the inefficiency of the non-vegetarian/non-vegan diet, and illustrating alternative uses for wasted resources. I’m not sure which alternative uses I should mention, but I am interested in talking about clean water being shared internationally with a focus on Africa, and land being used to grow some undetermined set of vegetables that will better utilize resources. Depending on the final direction of the project, I might propose alternatives myself, or I might leave the set of vegetables unspecified, taking the fact that there exists a better alternative for granted, though I would prefer to have a solution to offer. Overall, I will be targeting an uninformed population that perhaps doesn’t even know that meat is inefficient and unsustainable. I am considering a final product that aims to convince children of elementary school age that have not before had the opportunity to consider such issues.
Gorgo. "Moraine Lake 17092005" Digital image. Wikimedia. Wikimedia Commons, 22 Sept. 2005. Web. 25 Feb. 2015. <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moraine_Lake_17092005.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Moraine_Lake_17092005.jpg>.Released in Wikimedia Commons under PD by author.
I was trying to use my mind map to illustrate connections between Warner's fundamental ideas. The solid, black lines were generally made to signify a stronger or more direct connection than the red, dotted lines which sometimes represent two ideas connected by virtue of being opposites. I started by moving from Warner to the right, so that side of the map has been considered more thoroughly. The left most portion is more an afterthought for completion's sake.
I’m glad “visual rhetoric” is so vast and all-encompassing. It includes all images, and movies are lots and lots of images one after another; therefore movies are visual rhetoric, and I like movies! Today I want to look at one of this year’s films that was nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography: The Grand Budapest Hotel. I want to explore a little bit of the visual rhetoric from the movie and analyze the film how we have been analyzing other pieces of visual rhetoric.
Some may agree that Wes Anderson, the director of The Grand Budapest Hotel has created a genre of his own.
Andy Warhol's Brillo Boxes are a series of sculptures by the aforementioned artist created in 1964. Presented as high art at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pennsylvania, U.S.A., Warhol uses his sculpture to question the essence of what makes a piece of work (or anything for that matter), art as well as what makes a maker of such pieces, an artist. These boxes, ink silk screened onto wood, were originally designed for the consumer market by James Harvey, and yet he receives no acclaim. It is not his name that is known and it is not widely considered his work of art. Why? James Harvey was presumably commissioned by the owners of Brillo and designed a work that was acceptable enough for market to be produced on a massive scale. It is Warhol, however that saw this design in its intended habitat and appreciated it for more that it was, but rather for what it could be when viewed through a certain lens. Andy Warhol realized that art is not a thing to be created, but rather a label to be bestowed upon the beautiful, and beauty being so subjective in nature accepted the challenge of labeling art despite a lack of conventional beauty. The boxes themselves are pleasant in an all American consumerism sort of way, but it is the paradigm shift that they represent that turned Brillo Boxes into, arguably, Warhol's most popular sculpture.
So, is Warhol's work a parody of Harvey's? Can parody be high art? Is replication allowed? Allowed? Who's even making the rules? Are there rules? If Warhol can just copy something that was already designed and produced and call it art, cannot anyone be an artist?
Warhol's work does not parody Harvey's because it is not creating a commentary on the design, but rather is commenting on American consumer culture, and so in some ways is instead a parody of capitalism. High art is a myth created by the upper class and perpetuated by anyone whose livelihood depends on it. Replication is allowed. Everything is allowed. There are no rules. Anyone can be an artist.
The idea of certain people being artistic geniuses goes against the idea of art as a subjective form, and art is a subjective form. Some people are more technically skilled and better suited to certain mediums, but anyone that creates with the intent to make art (and a fair number that create without any such intent) is an artist. The world as a set of cultures should not strive to keep the elite on their thrones as the best of the art world, but instead work toward everyone creating. Read-write culture is more possible than ever thanks to the Internet and should be encouraged and utilized. The more that is made, the more likely something that any random individual will like or has been searching for or can be touched by exists. So let's create a culture that allows every possible iteration of an idea exist ten times over and then some.
"Aesthetics: Arthur Danto." Warhol: Collaboration: Arthur Danto, Brillo Boxes and the End of Art. The Andy Warhol Museum, n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. <http://www.warhol.org/education/resourceslessons/Aesthetics--Arthur-Danto/>.
Andy Warhol, Brillo Boxes, 1964, Installation at The Andy Warhol Museum. Digital image. Warhol:. The Andy Warhol Museum, n.d. Web. <http://www.warhol.org/uploadedImages/Warhol_Site/Warhol/Content/Education/resourceslessons/New_Other_Professionals_and_Features/08232012_EDU_op_%20brillo%20boxes%20installation%20cropped_main.jpg>.
Walsh, P. "Index of Selected Artists in the Collection." Warhol_Brillo Boxes. Oberlin College, n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2015. <http://www.oberlin.edu/amam/Warhol_BrilloBoxes.htm>.
kaledo-art
janainaart
snowghoul
germansingergirl
jbbartram-illu
