Free Canada

This video is pretty interesting. After talking about Canada today it got me thinking about what it would be like living in Canada. Honestly I don't blame them for wanting seperation from the U.S.... With our war, faltering economy, and global animosity.

Planet Starbucks or Project Mayhem?

I love watching movies, especially psychological and confusing movies. After our first class we had for Intro. To Mass Comm this video clip from the movie Fight Club popped right into my head and I have been thinking about it a lot since then.

Controversy = Money

While I haven't finished reading this chapter what Jenna had said about the mazda commercial made me think.  Whether woman are being objectified are not is not the issue, in my opinion.  Because this wasn't just a car commercial but something that got peopled excited, angry, or simply curious.  By causing controversy Mazda has produced more press for themselves than if they would have just showed the car driving on winding roads.  

This immediately brought my attention to the idea of publicity and controversy.  The latter leads to the former, ALWAYS.  The best example of this is Pink, her husband (whom she is separated from), the video for 'So What', and her new album funhouse.  

Here's the timeline, roughly:

Feb. 2008 - Pink and Carey Hart separate.  It's big news in Hollywood when there is a break-up and this one had people talking.

Aug. 2008 - Pink releases her video for 'So What'.  Her estranged husband makes a lengthy cameo and it seems odd that an ex would stand to be publicly humiliated.

Here is the video if you haven't seen it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJZDsJ8UU64

Oct. 2008 - Her album Funhouse is released.

Dec08/Jan09 - New years Eve a picture is taken of Pink and Carey Hart sharing a New Years kiss

And then this article was written on Jan, 23

http://www.news24.com/News24/Entertainment/Celebrities/0,,2-1225-2108_2457902,00.html

Is this a coincidence? I don't believe so. When the video came out this summer I already had a hunch

that this was a massive publicity stunt. After the first People magazine for 2009 came out, and had a

picture of their New Year's kiss, I was even more convinced. And after the article from news24.com

there isn't a doubt in my mind.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this type of advertisement. In fact I think its genius. The more

that people have to talk about something(good or bad), the more people will be talking about it! And

the best form of advertisement is word of mouth.

Week 1: When Have We Gone Too Far?

Haha, the post below me reminded me of a video of an advertisement form another country that I had seen years ago.



These types of ads are something that I have never seen in the U.S., but seem to be acceptable and possibly even normal in other countries. Is this because we have laws against them? Because the powers that be in the television industry would not allow it? I for one don't have the answer.

To me this "suggestive" advertising is funny, but I can't help by being caught off guard. I know that many countries in Europe have more relaxed standards and views of nudity and what they deem appropriate and I often find myself thinking that it is better to have such ideas. I would say most can agree that the giagantic backlash after the wardrobe malfunction in the superbowl was a bit overboard.

But at the same time I can see the U.S. traveling down the road to such standards, when one looks at the relaxation of regulations with the use of profanity and violence in mainstream t.v. and often I feel that this is something that may not be in our best interest, and I consider myself to be more liberal then most.

What do you all think..Do you think that the U.S. as a whole would be better of if these types of "open" commercials were allowed to air and not thought of as inappropriate?

I can't say for sure, but I know if I had a child, I certainly would not want them to ever even have the thought of a human and a dog having sex, even if they were in the form of a balloon.

Myth of Photography

In Chapter one, I found the reading on “The Myth of Photographic Truth” pretty interesting. When mentioning the philosophy of positivism and how the use of machines to capture a moment or represent a frame of time were regarded as more reliable than a painting or sketch done by human hand, I had a hard time applying it for today’s world. Granted, this description was formulated in the mid- 19th century when today’s technology was not in existence, but it stated that “a photograph is often perceived to be an unmediated copy of the real world, a trace of reality skimmed off the very surface of live, and evidence of real”, however in today’s world, you can rarely look at a professional photograph that has not be altered in some way. If you checkout this youtube video you can see how easy it is for today’s technology to alter a simple photograph. So, how much of what we really look at in our magazines and television ads are real, and how much are altered in order to appease what we want to see as reality? So when the book defines “myth” as a “hidden set of rules and conventions through which meanings are made to seem universal and given to the whole society”, I have to apply it to how people and advertising agencies use the magic of photo shop and all the other fancy gadgets they utilize to create an image of beauty, in this particular case, that influences our society.