Women in Films: Sidekick or Equal

Chris BeecherArgument, Film and Media, New Voices, Responding to a Text, Social Criticism, Visual Rhetoric

Analyzing images helps deconstruct the message the image is trying to convey and helps us understand why everything is portrayed the way it is. As Jack Solomon explains in his article, “Reading Visual Images Actively,” “In analyzing images, you will develop the ability to identify specific telling details and specific evidence” (33). Supremacy is the quality of being superior and …

How Hepburn Sells Chocolate

Chris BeecherAdvertisement Analysis, Film and Media, New Voices, Responding to a Text, Visual Rhetoric

It is very common for an advertiser to use a celebrity to affect a product’s value, such as in Galaxy’s 2013 chocolate bar advertisement [aka Dove Chocolate], which included a digital re-creation of Audrey Hepburn. In several days, most news outlets scrambled to report this new Galaxy girl; the ad touched off a heated discussion in the public. This chocolate …

What Makes a Man

Chris BeecherArgument, Literary Analysis, New Voices, Social Criticism

Finding the yin to your yang is a quest most people spend their lives searching for.  In the novel Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, written by Benjamin Alire Saenz, Aristotle and Dante are teens on their way to discovering who they are. The narrator of this novel is Aristotle, aka “Ari.” The struggle with race, family, …

Black Women’s Empowerment in Beyonce’s Lemonade

Chris BeecherFilm and Media, Literary Analysis, New Voices, Visual Rhetoric

Beyoncé’s second visual album, Lemonade, is a masterpiece at its finest. Lemonade was created to reveal Beyoncé’s responses to the infidelity of a significant other, the empowerment of African American women, and police brutality. The most important theme is black women’s empowerment. Lemonade addresses black women’s empowerment by placing black women of different shapes and sizes into her visual album; …

Seeing More Broadly

Chris BeecherArgument, Film and Media, New Voices, Previous Editions

Individuals always have a tendency to criticize from first impression without acknowledging the full outlook of the situation. On January 7, 2015, Sia debuted her music video “Elastic Heart.” In the music video, Sia uses Maddie Ziegler, a 12-year-old girl in a nude leotard who is locked in a bird cage battling a thirtyish Shia LaBeouf who is also wearing …

Target: Empowering the People

Chris BeecherAdvertisement Analysis, Argument, New Voices, Previous Editions, Social Criticism

In today’s marketing trends, gender based products is just the norm in the United States. This has become a great controversy in the past few years, due to a higher level of gender equality as well as same sex marriage being legalized. Target is a large corporation that is taking a big hit for introducing the idea of removing gender-based …

Feminist

Chris BeecherAdvertisement Analysis, Argument, New Voices, Politics, Previous Editions

Over generations, women’s lives have been created for them by  the men surrounding  them, but no more. The organization UN Women which focus on human equality and empowerment, created an entire campaign to bring to light how women  are still deprived  because  of their gender. The image chosen focuses on discrimination against women  naming  the image “Women Shouldn’t.” Women ‘s …

Misleading Gym Advertisements

Chris BeecherAdvertisement Analysis, Argument, New Voices, Previous Editions

There are advertisements at every store, gym, and street. Every day, we walk by hundreds of advertisements without even stopping to see what message the advertisement is trying to send. Even when we do notice, we usually do not stop to fully analyze what is being sold to us. Most advertisements have a deeper meaning and sometimes that underlining meaning …