Text and Subtext

Today in media we had Dr. Leech as guest speaker, Mrs Maxwell-Steele's brother in law. He was a well educated, interesting speaker. He talked to us about commercials and other forms of advertising. He then went on to discus the text and subtext of commercials. He showed us various commercials and had us identify the main text and the subtext of each commercial. He taught us that there is a hidden message behind every commercial and that some of which are immoral and false whereas others may be true.

Another thing Dr. Leech showed us was that everything in a commercial, from clothes to setting was very thought out. He used the Bud Light commercial as an example of this. He discussed every detail of the commercial and had us think about why each detail was used.

Towards the end of the period we talked about body image and stereotypes used in advertising. We re-watched the maybelline commercial which contained the "Ideal Woman" who was pushing a face cream that covers up pores, we discussed how this commercial attacked women's self esteem by making them believe they had to be poreless and like the girl in the commercial. We also revisited the Pepto Bismol commercial that portrayed men as fat lazy slobs who will eat anything and women as perfect housewives who do nothing but care for their husbands.

I found Dr. Leech a very interesting speaker who helped me realize more about the world around me.