Persuasive Sign

Reading Summary:

The article analyzes an ad for Marilyn Peach, a sparkling wine. The ad contains many subtexts, as it suggests the Genesis narrative and contains sexual undertones. The Genesis narrative is called mythization. Connotative chaining is when each signifier evokes a connotation which in turn evokes another, and then another, and so on. Textuality is the specific mode or modes of making ads and commercials on the basis of specific signification systems built intentionally into products. Ambiguity is the ability to generate various kinds of subtexts from the same layout. When there are multiple interpretations of a text, it has a high connotative index to the product’s textuality.

Outside Example:

When thinking about symbolism, I instantly thought of the Formation music video, because I feel like literally everything means something in the video and everytime you watch it, you find something you didn’t see before. Even when the music video was released sends a message, as it was released on Trayvon Martin’s birthday. The music video starts out with Beyonce sitting on a police car submerged in water, a reference to both Hurricane Katrina and police brutality. Throughout the music video, Beyonce evokes imagery from Katrina and shows scenes from the Lower 9th Ward, a predominantly Black area of New Orleans that was completely devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Later in the music video, there is a black child dancing in front of a line of fully-armed police officers and a wall painted with “stop shooting us,” both obvious references to police brutality.

Connection to Reading:

The Formation music video connects to the reading, because there are so many references and symbols throughout the music video. Sometimes, once you find a symbol, you realize that it leads to another symbol. This is an example of connotative chaining. Additionally, many of the symbols are pretty ambiguous. For example, some people think that there is symbolism in what Beyonce is wearing – whether it be black or white – while some people think that these people are just looking too much into it. This music video would have a high connotative index, because people can get very different things about what this music video means as well as how many undertones there actually are.