Thursday, February 26, 2015

Axe

In an ad for axe, there are two images split in the middle one girl and one guy on opposite sides. The guy is showering with axe while the girl has whip cream wrapped around her. Although the men and women are in the same position, the same dark room, and the same style of foam/cream; The focus of this add is the people although the product appears on the bottom center is not the main focus it is the second thing you see. The ad expresses to the viewer the “cause and effect of the product”, the slogan written across the bottom of the ad is “the cleaner you are the dirtier you get.” They use the dark colors to form a mysterious sense of the correlation between pictures.
Although it’s advertising a shower gel for men it uses women to get the males to guy the product. By doing that it dehumanizes the women and just makes her the side effect of using this product. Although, it is not directly saying that axe makes you get women, its implying that women will come to you if you use axe. Also it is a common fact that if you smell good people will like to be around you, and by using that common knowledge it is persuading you to use axe. They’re selling this product by sexualizing the effects of good hygiene in their ads, as opposed to many female body soaps where they offer soft skin and healthy, axe offers sex to its customers.

But this is common in ads intended for males they often advertise by sexualizing its ads. It shows a male model the standard for good looking guys and it shows a good looking female as well, if the female wasn’t good looking the ad wouldn’t sell because its not what the consumer wants, this has happened before to other companies like Wendy’s. Skinny, healthy people on ads sell, if the models were over weight or slightly cubby the ads don’t sell as well, because they don’t fit the ideal women or man of that generation. Many men associate smelling good to getting women so axe simply assist that knowledge that by using axe you smell good and get more women.
Not only is it sexualizing and degrading women but axe's parent company is Dove. Dove claims to be "women positive", but how can we believe them if they make ads for Axe which degrade women, where they make women an object but in Regular dove ads they claim every women is beautiful regardless and in these Axe ads they have flawless most likely photoshopped women to persuade men into buying there product. In dove ads they say we're all beautiful to persuade women to buy their products.
Regardless of what their selling they use there audience say what their audience wants to hear to get them to buy their product. They're just another company who wants to make a profit wether or not it changes the social ideology or not. Dove and Axe have completely opposite messages to the opposite sex, but regardless of the message they want consumers, not many people realize the correlation between the two companies but once they do you start to question if they're actually supporting women or using them or supporting the men or just lying to them. 

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Rugrats in Paris

Remember those lazy afternoons without homework where you could lie down on the couch and watch Rugrats. Well during break that's exactly what I did except I did have homework, I had turned on Netflix and spent the net hour and a half watch and analyzing the Rugrats in Paris. I watched a group of toddlers go on an adventure around Reptar land and watch as they tried to stop a wedding and succeeded, and most of the time it’s just the kids on there own adventure without supervision. Although under most circumstances the adults play only a minor role in most shows, they actually play a big role in this movie they’re why they go to Paris in the first place and end up with different problems the kids try to solve.
Although not all the characters are main characters no two characters are alike, the twins mom is energetic as apposed to her husband which is timid and there kids the twins are just as energetic as the mom, Stew is inventive while his wife makes rare appearances and their kids Tommy and dill are more quiet but inventive, Angelica’s mom is all business no play and her child the oldest of the group Angelica well she’s the evil mastermind and teases the kids, while Chaz, Chuckie’s dad, is always gloomier then the rest. Like father like son, Chuckie is the same, they both want a new mother and wife, and this is where the story comes in.
For this movie Chuckie is the main character and like Reptar he is misunderstood and just wants someone to care for him. After hearing the story of Reptar and how the princess understood him and cared for him, Chuckie and his friends go on the search for the princess in hopes that she will be his new mother. While this occurs the villain, despite her dislike of children, is luring Chaz into marry her for her own selfish reasons, and Chaz falls for her tricks and is lured into believing she is the one he wants to marry. The kids a furious and want to stop the wedding so they steal a giant robot Reptar fight off the evil servant and stop the wedding where Chaz realizes its not her that he wants to marry, but instead he wants to marry her kind assistant that likes kids. After back home they do in fact marry and although it’s not the princess mom he wanted his new mom ends up being someone much better.

The core of all this has to be that adults are just bigger kids and they make mistakes too like Chaz and almost marring the villain and the adults for losing the kids. Not only that but the rugrat’s motto is “A babies gotta do, what a babies gotta  do” meaning if you want something you have to go for it and do it, after all without the kids teamwork Chuckie’s dad may have gotten married to the wrong person, which wouldn't have resulted in a happy ending. But racially there is a lot of diversity around them like asians and europeans but not many spanish or african americans, actually I didn't see any spanish people in it; also the important characters are all Caucasian. the only diversity added to the group are Kimmy and her mother but they are only added in at the end of the movie. The grown up in this movie are all adults with with stable middle class jobs, there are no tragic events in the family or  imigration, they are the average middle class american living in a suburban area. Theres no mention of money problems, they all are fully capable of taking a week off there jobs and going to paris and paying the trip by them selfs and for their family. Overall these families seem to be the perfect family, with parents and grandparents and one or more children. Also there is rarely any missed children or mixed marriages or gay couples. This show follows the social norm of the time period it was made and the expectations of what a normal family and community should be like.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

The Center of School Life

The cafeteria, the most interesting or the most boring rowdy place you've ever been, but this all depend on your point of view. The cafeteria in McMahon the center of school life and drama, and the only place to hold a huge swarms of ever changing cliques is nothing more then a huge two part room with a kitchen attached which cooks “food”, and a wall consisting of window to the outside so you feel more free.
            “Classy” it rhymes with glassy, it must be what the architect was going for right? Considering he also built the bridge and the back section of the school filled with the most brilliant glass looking down on the field and hill. He must have been aiming to make the school “that school you wish you could go to” the one that looks pretty and cool and sophisticated. He succeeded every friend I have brought to this school and even I am amazing at all the windows and the view, honestly it makes me feel more free and apart of the school atmosphere even if I’m just looking out of the window at the sports team, I feel like “yea that's my sports team practicing to win, this is McMahon”. Maybe that wasn't the original purpose of the architecture but it worked.

            By putting the windows in the cafeteria he created an eye grabbing experience along with a more airy, spacious feeling, like the tables of people never end it continues to outside because the windows are floor to ceiling everything seems to go on. This appeals to everyone to new students, old students, especially visitors; it’s dramatic and sophisticated just what you would want in a cafeteria. The windows provide a distraction as well they overshadow any posters on them or around them because it is the highlight of the room, with a beautiful well maintained field as its back ground and a pretty sky it is eye grabbing. After the window you notice the bar stools and columns and its fairly impressive, and then after all of that you notice the tables and people (if there are any). The cafeteria was made to impress.