Nothing says 'Merica like Parlors, Puppies, and Pepsi

Considering images rhetorical doesn’t mix me up too much. Aside from acquiring more words to add (and then REMOVE;) from our key terms list, I feel ok about it. As we’ve been working in the class, I’ve found I might have a tendency to use the word “rhetorical” a bit too liberally. The class so far has asked me to dial that back and, even though this week’s readings encourage the use of rhetorical lenses and methodologies, I still think they’re looking for a more refined view of rhetoric/al than I was working from to begin with. After reading Tange and Hill, I felt I had a more focused framework build on. Blair offers some useful vocabulary words (his telling of ambiguity/vagueness, resonance, presence, persuasion, proposition) that I think will help me continue to refine my view of rhetoric/al and help me better understand images as they operate as argument, persuasion, or proposition.

I really enjoyed Tange’s exploration of the homemaking guides of the Victorian era. It was interesting to me to see how visual rhetoric can be used to construct gender, class, and space. The construction of space is particularly interesting to me and the parallels drawn between the visuals and the moral importance of their execution in a space was really fascinating. The cultural importance of these visuals, too, seems somehow deeper, knowing that they manifested in real life sitting rooms and corridors.

Now, please allow a minor digression wherein I take issue with Blair’s chapter…

All of these chapters argue for the rhetorical value of the image, but resist the verbal/visual divide. Blair’s examples of visuals that should be considered rhetorical involve text (film, cartoons, political ads) and he resists classifying TV ads as rhetorical. His case and point is the Pepsi ad that shows two boys playing with puppies. He talks about this example a lot in the chapter, so I figured I should google it. Here’s the thing – The whole time the boys are playing with the puppies there is a song playing in the background. A chorus of joyful young singers professes “Join the Pepsi people, you be you, I’ll be me. All across the nation, is the Pepsi Generation, here today, here to stay, feeling free.” The puppy scenes are spliced with images of the boys’ grandmother and parents drinking Pepsi. The commercial was aired in 1975 and seems situated in a greater narrative of Cold War era belonging and US nationalism. It was also part of a larger campaign that continued the same Nationalistic pride and narrative of belonging with generations coming together as one (especially with children and grandchildren…. Yeah, I spent too much time looking at these ads). Did anyone else see any reference to the lyrics in the commercial? In my reading, he omits that Pepsi was featured at all alongside his omission of the lyrics. So, I think what’s happened here is that Blair has claimed that visuals are sometimes rhetorical, sometimes argumentative if they make propositions. He’s picky about what a proposition is (the Coca-Cola commercial that seems to claim Coke products make you suave fails to make a proposition, I guess because it’s not “real”), and he’s picky about how a proposition gets made (his focus on the puppies and babies instead of the lyrical aspect that is joined with the visuals). To me, the Pepsi commercial is propositional when considered with its lyrics and the Pepsi references. It positions the viewer as a possible community member and invites the viewer in. I think his omission of the lyrics is a pretty big oversight, especially because he’s using this as a case to show that images are not always rhetorical, but I really think this one is rhetorical as a result of the textual interplay. I guess I’m a little baffled, too, because the political cartoons Blair sites as examples would be nearly meaningless without the textual elements he describes. So, why the attention to text there, but not with this commercial?

Too, I would argue that muting the TV during commercials is far more a choice than getting mugged…. But that’s another digression entirely.