Visual Literacy:

Slide Show / Discussion on Advertising and Visual Literacy

Introduction
Are there legitimate outlets for adolescents to question and challenge authority? Look at inside and outside of schools? What can we learn from what students do outside of school to change what we address
inside of schools? Describe how the adolescent is characterized by an increased tension between individual desire (one's own unique take on reality) and the desire to belong to a much larger group. The latter is
easily manipulated in public space through advertising because corporations own public space. How can one cause adolescents to question this control? For example ask: Are you willing to give up your
individuality to believe in a larger reality created by advertisers?
I want you to think of these images in terms of concrete language codes like hieroglyphics: gestures, stance, formulas, stereotypes. The contradiction in the reading of images or hieroglyphics is that on one hand
it is an enigmatic language - there is not a single reading - yet at the same time images have the potential to be the most universally understood language. Also images have the most staying power in their ability to
become imprinted in our memories. I'm reading a book called the Art of Memory and it is all about the ability of the visual image to imprint itself in memory. Ask students to close their eyes and think about a
memory of something they either read or viewed last night. How many people remember a book? A movie, an ad? If it was a book, do they have a visual memory or do they think of the words?
Ads are situated within a much large network of representation: the cinema and art history. I've included some images from art history to show the origins or persistence of certain stereotypes over time. Ads have
to resort more and more to shock value to gain attention. Distortion is so possible now with image processing software such as photoshop. This makes it even more possible to construct images, yet people still
tend to believe the photo as a "truth" when it has become like a painting in the way reality is manipulated.
Looking at the poses and gestures of the conventionalized undressed to some dgree nude woman, what do these images signify? (Submission, passivity, vulnerability) What do these conventions mean? In the
image Judgement of Paris, Paris awards the apple to the woman he finds most beautiful. Beauty is competitive. If you are not judged beautiful, you are therefor not beautiful. Those who are, are awarded the
prize. What is the prize? To be made available to the judge?
What does it mean to be objectified? (The sight of an object stimulates the use of it as an object).
End slide show with examples of Ad Busters of "Shock Ads". Advertising is now trafficking in paradox and postmodern irony. Viewers are becoming more sophisticated and aware that ads are bogus.
Therefore some ads are now communicating: "be suspicious of ads. On the other hand, we've been honest, so you can trust us." Increasingly, as young people are targeted, they are becoming compassion
fatigued.
Slides from Advertising shown next to Images from Art History
PAGE 1:
Bulbous Prehistoric statue of the Venus of Willendorf compare this with advertisement of a woman with the "waif" look (left page 3).
What is it about the waif look that would make it pleasurable or do you find it pleasurable? Is it at the expense of the woman? (Emptiness of the gaze. Totally passive.) Discuss the context behind the creation of
these two contrasting icons.

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Paintings like ads were appealing to the patrons' desires. To "have the painting was to "have" the woman. (Slide: The Good Life) She is both an image of desire and a desirous image. Do you think she inspires
devotion? What is the effect of her eyes looking directly out? The position is very constructed. It is not real. Try to imagine having a conversation with her. Have you seen men in this position? Compare the
expressions of these two women.

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Magazine image of emaciated woman beside a display of fruit (like still life). She is looking at herself in the mirror which looks out at the viewer. Here the woman is doubly "framed" in the act of looking. This
was very popular in art history. You the spectator is looking at her as she looks at herself as the mirror images looks out with the direct gaze. There's an emptiness to the gaze in advertising. Very passive. What is
so appealing about this formula?

Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus by Rubens: What do you think is happening here? The men are all vertical representing strength while the women are leaning on them, erotically , without resistance.
Ad of a muscular male torso which is very tanned, flexing his bicep against his chest. All the lines in the images are vertical. One drop of perfume runs down his skin like sweat.
What binaries are being forced between representation of genders, both in the act of looking and in the body gesture? (passive/active)

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Every image in advertising is designed to manipulate the viewer in some way - selling a lifestyle or product. In reading an image, there are two things to be aware of: the way the photograph or painting has been
framed by the artist and how the viewer's personal experience influences the interpretation. What is the fantasy in this ad (Grand Marnier ), in this painting? (Helpless, man coming to her aid.)

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Two contrasting perfume ads. One is fluffy pink with a timid girl crossing her legs seated shyly in a tootoo. The ad for the male is a profile looking like the statue of Balzac by Rodin. The nose has been broken,
the stance is strong and noble.

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Bra ads from "Women's Today" magazine from the 50's to the present. Why has this gesture become such a formula?

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started looking for images of woman and technology. There is a persistent stereotype that women are more incompetent with technology. Where does this originate? Is it ads which create the stereotype? Are they
satisfying the need, creating it, satisfying peoples' insecurities, or what? What are the utopianpromises of technology? How does the slim, lightweight ideal of technology affect ideals of the body? (Pages 12
through 16)

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Business woman. Her eyes are wide, her hair dishevelled. She's out of control
The males in these ads are very calm and in control.

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Ad showing the body distorted through use of photoshop software.

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Smoking Ad
How is this ad subverting the real warning on the cigarette package?
What would young people find appealing about this ad?