In Class: Rhetorical Thinking

I accidentally read this last unit which I was kind of glad I did because it had a short piece on Victoria's Secret and Bob Dylan that I thought was very relevant to what I was saying Victoria's Secret was saying. I think rhetorical thinking looks at ideas kind of the way I always look at things. Instead of just going along with what something is clearly stating you beyond that and ask your self "what are they REALLY saying here." If we never really rhetorically think about anything we would all morph into somewhat the same person, ok well not that extreme but pretty close. Advertisement agencies would love this because instead of us being thrown off but say the picture with the little girl smoking a cigarette we would know automatically what they wanted us to see, which I'm personally still a little thrown off by it. Rhetorical thinking is a lot simpler than what most people think it is. We are born to question most things, or at least hopefully you were, other wise we would believe everything we saw. They could put a pic of an allen sitting in a classroom and we would believe it....seriously!

V-Week

Today was the 120 Dead ceremony at the student union.  I had never heard anything about V-Week before (which I guess I never pay attention) and as soon as we talked about it in class found out that the first event would be today.  They sold 120 shirts to male and females all over campus and then today we all gathered at 12:00 to show just how many people this really is.  While there we were handed a card with the ladies name that we represented.  It would have their name how old and where they were from.  It would also give a little short story on what happened to them. 

We all one at a time went up to a mic and stated the woman's name, age, and where she was from.  This really hit me emotionally mainly because you will not believe the amount of women that were under the age of 30! One was only 14 years old!! The other thing that really touched me is the fact that this is not just a big city problem.  Right before I went a woman gave a ladies name and then said "Kerrville" I thought wow mainly because I am from there, but also because it made me wonder why I didn't already know of this.  Kerrville is very small and usually everybody knows everything, but when it comes to violence it sometimes gets "pushed under the rug." This is an issue and one that every town should address because if we all try to raise awareness about relational violence maybe one day it will no longer be an issue.  

I am very glad that I got to be a part of the 120 Dead today because it really opened my eyes to this issue.  I am not going to be able to make it to either showing of the Vagina Monologues on Friday or Saturday because I have to work but you can Youtube them! I have already watched a couple and they are great!

Ethical Emotional Logical Appeals

Well as I said last week I am observing the space of Victoria's Secret.  This store is filled with arguments from sexuality to marketing product placement.  When it comes to the Ethical Emotional and Logical Appeals you can see them from the side walk of the store.

Unlike other clothing/appeal stores where the employees have to wear and promote the stores clothing, employees wear all black suits (even though they could be wearing the attire under their cloths).  Mainly because this would be a little inappropriate for women to walk around in their bra and panties or lingerie.  The employee's at Victoria Secret are trying to give an ETHICAL APPEAL by saying we are professionals here to help you, rather it be sizing you for a bra or helping you find the perfect piece for a weekend get away.  I think it is a good move on Victoria's Secret's part. If you go into Chico's undergarment store Soma the employees wear silk robs and to me it made me feel like they don't take there job as seriously.

The second you walk into VS you smell all there many different scents all ranging from "Sweet Pea to Berry Kiss" and everything is light pink to bright pink.  These smells and colors hit you with the feelings of softness and calmness and as gay as this may sound sexyness.  Think about when babies are born: its either baby pink or light blue and the girls get the pink stuff and the boys get the blue stuff.  So from the point we are born a female we had something that was pink.  Its the color pink that makes us feel like a female; it hits us very EMOTIONAL.

Victoria's Secret doesn't just want to promote sex obviously, it wants to pull in all different kinds of customers.  They aren't targeting the same customers as Fredrick's of Hollywood, they want everyone to feel comfortable stepping in there door which is why they LOGICALLY give you TWO doors to step into.  One door that goes straight to the bras and panties and one that goes to the products first.  

I'm excited to go more in depth with my observations coming up in our paper! Hope everyone else's places are going great!

In Class: Analyzing Visuals

My immediate attention is drawn to the little girl because she is looking straight at me. She is also a very pretty little girl with a very sad look on her face HOLDING A CIGARETTE. The little girl looks much older that she is mainly because her hair is down and around her face. Its also not worn in tight curls, its almost like they made it look like she had a rough night of partying last night. The main photo is in black and white and everything in the background is solid black, the little girl however is dressed in a solid white dress.

There is another little girl in the photo who is looking at her with her hands on her hips. She dressed in a darker dress probably to give her less attention. This little girl is standing with her back to us and we can see her face, but you can tell that she is a young girl because her hair is pulled back into a pony tail with little curls in it.

I think this photo is about children using cigarettes at a young age and how children now days see this all the time in movies or tv shows and are starting to think its normal. The title of the photo at the top says candy cigarettes and sadly these are sold around America.

I believe this photo is to raise awareness about what are children are seeing as normal now days. Instead of seeing movies that are projecting a reality of growing up and being a princess they are seeing more shows about children being grown ups. Perfect example is Family Guy, this show has a BABY that is more of a grown-up than his parents. He does everything from smoke to drink and become an alcoholic. WHAT ARE KIDS WATCHING NOW DAYS!

In Class: Logos

After reading Chapter 4 I found the Surveys and Polls section to be pretty interesting. I kept thinking about a persuasive speech I did my Freshman year against gay marriage. (I did not pick the topic my professor assigned it to me). Anyways when looking for way to persuade my audience I tried to find a percentage of how many people were actually homosexual in America. Well I don't know what I was thinking I would find because of course there is not a national census taken every 5 years of how many homosexuals there are, and even if there was how many would be willing to admit they are? Well of course I found some research with some numbers that were extremely low (proving my point that this is nowhere close to a majority of people that would benefit from getting married). This information can from fairly descent places with pretty good credentials but still I only used them because they showed number I could use to persuade my audience on to my side of the argument.