Wysocki Response #13

Pre-Reading
This old advertisement for beer is one that I found that I have mixed feelings about. While it is somewhat humorous and portrays the whole 1950's "everything is pleasant" thing, it also shows the woman to be the inferior servant for her husband, who makes fun of her in the ad. So, even though it is kinda funny, it also angers me a bit.

Summary
In her article "The Sticky Embrace of Beauty", Anne Frances Wysocki attempts to explain to the reader about the way that advertising is pleasing and/or offensive. She argues that the way "beauty" is shown in advertisements may be pleasing to the eye, but the context in which it is being used can be offensive, especially in the way of objectifying women that she talks about in this article.

Synthesis
I honestly can't relate this to much else that we have read, but I do see a similarity between this and the Bernhardt article because both talked about how the visual aspects of a piece of writing (or in this case advertisements) have an effect on the reader.

QD
2. When it comes to the way that Wysocki set up the text in her article, it was low visual, but yet had a few visual elements in it when she was trying to describe the effects of it. I suppose it worked for me, but the one thing that i found really irritating about it was that she used way too many quotes and it distracted me from what the article was about.

3. The Peek ad did catch my attention in a way that was like, "okay, that's definitely a really scandalous looking picture". I can't really say that it interested me or made me want to buy it, but rather it did make me wonder who had the audacity to put that controversial ad out into the mainstream.

AE#2
2. Yes, I do believe that beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder, because everyone's definition of what beautiful is depends on each individual's perception. However, society has set a standard for what the mainstream considers to be "beautiful", and we see this in almost every advertisement for makeup, perfume, hair color, etc. So yes, it is also subjected to some social forces.

MM
This statement applies to Wysocki's article because she explains how the advertising has to catch the eye of the customer and that sometimes it has to go outside the box in order to do so. This applies to other visual art because art oftentimes has to be controversial to catch the viewers attention.

My Thoughts
I honestly did not like this article. I thought it was way too long, and it was so boring I could barely stay awake through the whole thing. It also probably didn't help that I didn't understand most of the article. It was very confusing, mostly because of the way it was worded I suppose.