Week 4: Romance: Intolerable transforms to Desirable

50 Shades of Grey is now a household title.

Despite very popular criticisms for poor writing style and lack of a substantial plot, 50 Shades of Grey has been devoured and "taken America by Storm" to the point where book sellers could not keep up with the physical demand for copies of the text.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the story, overlooked Anastasia Grey falls in love with a very brilliant and seemingly cold leader of a business empire, Christian Grey. The trailer basically summarizes the rest:

I could not help but think of this title when reading "Women Read the Romance: The Interaction of Text and Context" by Janice A. Radway, a bookseller turned romance fiction guru with her monthly newsletter filtering the quality romantic novels form the breath of trash that plagues the genre.  (1983).  Though it was authored over 30 years ago, the underlying concepts that distinguish a popular romantic novel remain pretty much the same. According to Radway's article, women tended to favor the romantic novels that featured a dependent heroine that was, to herself, unrecognizingly beautiful and a hero that was masculine with the ability to be gentle and nurturing when it pertained to the woman that he loved.

50 Shades of Grey embodies two characters that Radway claims that her clientele would not favor nor tolerate- explicit sexual descriptions and abuse- although they loved suggestive descriptions that alluded to such (see cheesy romantic titles pictured below). I believe that this shows a evolution much due to the acceptability of sexual content on TV, movies and a general cultural shift towards comfortability with sexuality.

Personally, I do not believe that this change is taboo or expresses an underlying support of violence against women but rather bluntly states and expresses the range of sexualities and desires that have been uncomfortably hidden in our culture for some time.

Week 2: Textual and Content Analyses

Skyy. Cuervo. Miller. 

Most likely you associate the brief list of last names with popular alcoholic beverages, and in today's society where we are all avid consumers of product placement and promotional advertisements, you are not alone. In fact, your legal status in regards to the consumption of alcohol has little to do with your recognition with these brands, much to do with the increased television advertisements of such products (especially during televised sporting events). After our weekly required reading regarding content and textual analyses, I began to wonder if there were any studies centered around responsible drinking advertisements versus those that center around living a life of love, adventure and luxury.

Jose Cuervo Advertisement

Bacardi Advertisement

Skyy Vodka Advertisement

 (note the extremely small text with a  seemingly obligatory, and less effective, "drink responsibly" note)

I found that most studies that concentrate on my area of interest use a content analysis approach. For example, a study conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services found that teens were 239 times more likely to see a leisurely product advertisement compared to more serious message centered around responsible habits- translated into a large picture, only 8 out of the 109 studied companies aired "responsibility" advertising. I have performed a short textual analysis of two types of the aforementioned advertisements. 

A leisurely advertisement by Miller (embedded below) uses an extradiegetic sound (with the background music conveying a feeling of excitement) and is edited in a montage format (meeting, falling in love, starting a family, etc.) The advertisement has very little to do with actually drinking the beer- it is simply a prop in the background during social scenes but the act of actually sipping the beer is a structuring absence. 

This can be compared to the Budweiser responsibility advertisement (embedded below), which also uses a montage and extradiegetic sound combined with diegetic sound, also only shows the beer in social contexts but further defines responsibly in the sense of caring towards another being besides yourself by defining another subject.

I believe that it would be very interesting to perform an in-depth textual analysis of alcohol commercials, further divulging into how a meaning of fun or responsibly is created, where the ads are placed, when they are aired and further analyzing the perks if a company sticks in  a "drink responsibly" line or theme.

Citations: 
Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (2008). "Youth exposure to alcohol advertising on television, 2001-2009." Johns Hopkins University, accessed January 18, 2015, http://www.camy.org/research/Youth_Exposure_to_Alcohol_Ads_on_TV_Growing_Faster_Than_Adults/_includes/TVReport01-09_Revised_7-12.pdf

Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (2006). "Drowned Out: Alchol Industry "Responsibility" Advertising on Television, 2001-2005". Johns Hopkins University, accessed January 18, 2015, http://www.camy.org/research/Drowned_Out_Alcohol_Industry_Responsibility_Advertising_on_Television_2001_2005/_includes/responsibility2007.pdf

Cultural Politics (2014). "Textual Analysis". Cultural Politics, accessed January 18, 2015, Website, http://culturalpolitics.net/popular_culture/textual_analysis

Slater, Michael D., Donna Rouner, Melanie Domenech-Rodriguez, Frederick Beauvais, Kevin Murphy, and James K. Van Leuven (1997).  "Adolescent responses to TV beer ads and sports content/context: Gender and ethnic differences."Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 74, no. 1: 108-122. 

Smith, Katherine Clegg, Samantha Cukier, and David H. Jernigan (2014) "Defining strategies for promoting product through ‘drink responsibly’ messages in magazine ads for beer, spirits and alcopops." Drug and alcohol dependence, 142: 168-173.