Comparing and Contrasting Visual Arguments

For Monday, choose one of the pairs of images below (if you want to talk about the Kate Moss Calvin Klein ad and its parody, refer to the last post for the images), then answer the following questions:

1.) What do the images have in common? (Consider such things as composition, lighting, framing, subject matter, color, argumentative technique, etc.)

2.) How are the images different? (Consider these same issues, but also think about the idea of PARODY. The Adbusters image in each set of ads is a parody of the original, so think about how this dynamic works).

3.) How do these images relate to Berger's notions of "envy" and "glamour" (which he defines in Chapter 7 of Ways of Seeing)?

For help with comparison/contrast writing, see pages 127-132 in Writing and Revising.

Representations of Gender in Advertising

In Chapter 3 of Ways of Seeing, Berger argues that:

To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. The social presence of women has developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space. But this has been at the cost of a woman's self being split in two. A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across a room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually.

And so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman.

She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to others, and ultimately how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life. Her own sense of being in herself is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by another.

A bit further on he adds:

One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object -- and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.

In light of these arguments, consider the two images below, and answer the following questions (for each image):

1.) What is the argument of the image?
2.) What techniques does it use to convey that argument?
3.) Who is the target audience?
4.) Do you find the advertisement convincing?

Then consider these two general questions:

5.) How does the second image parody/critique the first?
6.) Do you agree with Berger's analysis of gender? If so, why? If not, why not?

Reading and Writing About Advertising

After reading chapter 7 in Ways of Seeing, consider the two images below, then answer the following questions for each image:

1.) What is the argument of the advertisement?
2.) What techniques does it use to convey that argument?
3.) Who is the advertisement designed for? (Who is it the target audience?)
4.) Do you find the advertisement convincing? Why or why not?

Click on the ads to enlarge the images. Post your responses in the COMMENTS section of this entry before class on Wednesday.