Intersections of Narratives, Arguments, and Rhetoric

Following Heather's line of thought, I want to begin with the intersection of Hill and Blair at the Pepsi commercial. While my take on the ad won't be as thorough or insightful, I want to provide further evidence that leads me to believe the frolicking babies and puppies function as an argument. Before seeing the commercial on the blog, Blair gave me the impression that the commercial consisted of nothing but puppies and babies. So, I was going to make an argument of of presence and absence: since no parents are present in the commercial, the audience “plugs themselves” into the commercial as caregivers of the babies. These babies are obviously well-adjusted, thanks to the absent (or enthymematically present) parents. When the Pepsi logo is presented, affect transfer implicitly connects Pepsi with the raising of healthy, fun-loving babies. So, an implicit premise in this (imagined) ad is that “happy and healthy homes drink Pepsi.”

Now after seeing the actual commercial, I agree that Blair had some major oversights, not only in his exclusion of the lyrical aspect of the ad but also in failing to mention the other characters in this commercial. When we consider Mom, Dad, and Grandma, we begin to see a narrative, the evocation of cultural values, and an enthymeme. Heather already covered cultural values, but I would add that our cast of characters represents the traditional nuclear (no pun intended) family, further evoking American ideals. When it comes to a narrative and an enthymeme, the argument I made in the last paragraph applies. When we actually see Mom, Dad, and Grandma being loving caregivers with happy children, the audience (specifically, parents) identify with them and want to emulate their behaviors. The fact that these loving parents also drink Pepsi again applies the premise that “happy healthy homes drink Pepsi.”

Based on others' posts so far, I seem to be more inclined to look at how narrative, "the rhetorical," and arguments intersect rather than feeling the need to separate them. As an example, I want to talk about this New Yorker cover:

This cartoon is based on an intertextual narrative: an audience must be aware of both the first presidential debate and Clint Eastwood's speech at the RNC to fully understand it. We have a synthesis of these two previous events to create a new visual visual narrative. The narrative that is constructed is dependent upon the audience: to a Romney supporter, the image implies that Obama was not present (at least mentally) during the debate, essentially making it a cakewalk for Romney. To an Obama supporter, the image implies that the issues Romney raised during the debate were not accurate to Obama's presidency; that Romney was speaking to/about a president and presidency that doesn't actually exist. Given that this artifact presents a different message depending on the premise supplied by the viewer, it is making an argument and/or two arguments. 

Finally, how does "the rhetorical" fit into this visual? Drawing from Hill, I would say that the cartoon has a degree of vividness somewhere between "line drawing" and "realistic painting," according to the scale on P. 31. This vividness provides Romney with presence, but Obama's absence is also rhetorical as it draws upon Eastwood's previous speech and will evoke different emotions depending upon political affiliation. When we see the intersection of these three aspects, we have a strong example of visual rhetoric. So, I believe I'm arguing that rhetorical aspects of images strengthen narratives and arguments based on their vividness, presence, and immediacy to the viewer.