Reading Sandoval’s piece on semiotics, I was reminded of the many, many awful Superbowl ads I’ve had the misfortune to watch over the years. There were many I could have chosen to look at in detail, but I ended up going with a Fiat 500 commercial from 2012. The opening shot of the ad establishes […]

In the Bud Light, “Clothing Drive” commercial, though there is no explicit statement that the product is geared towards men, but through simple semiotic analysis (and common sense) it is clear. It is also clear that, through the heterosexual male gaze, the expression of disgust towards the male form is just as important as the […]

While reading bell hooks’ article about love ethic, I found myself highlighting a lot of excerpts: “awakening to love can happen only as we let go of our obsession with power and domination”; “living by a love ethic we learn to value loyalty and a commitment to sustained bonds over material advancement”; “many prophets of […]

Yogurt commercials have a reputation of marketing their product to women for weight-loss and probiotic control, so seeing a Dannon Oikos yogurt commercial marketed toward men is a new change, although the commercial relies heavily on semiotics that make the yogurt seem more “masculine.” By using a football player as the spokesperson, instead of the […]

84 Lumber’s Super Bowl commercial tells the story of a Mexican mother and her daughter making the trip to the United States border and, ultimately, opening a large door in the wall at the border to gain entry into the country. As this journey plays out, we also get clips of a construction crew, working […]

Considering unconventional expressions of love that are shown in advertisements made me think about the number of food commercials I see that are romantically or sexually charged. Though Sandoval encourages us to re-think how we perceive love, and asks us to imagine this experience existing outside of a romantic couple in a relationship, I wonder if she […]

The Super Bowl is one of the most coveted advertising slots in the year- and companies shell out big bucks in order to get their product advertised to the large audience (some of whom tune in just for the fun and interesting commercials). I didn’t watch the Super Bowl this year, or catch up on […]

“I am Jazz” is a TLC show that depicts the life of Jazz Jennings.  Jazz is a transgender girl who, with the support of her parents and family, decided at a young age that she was born in the wrong body and wanted to live life a girl.  In the show, we see her day […]

Season 18 of Big Brother was controversial at best. It premiered during one of the most tense sociopolitical moments in recent American memory. Consequently, issues of race, feminism, and intersectionality—especially hot-button issues at the time (and at the time of writing this post)—were simply unavoidable. The two black women in the show—Da’Vonne Rogers and Zakiyah Everette—were the […]

I thought this video from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air would be a good example to use because it is an example of the way that the issues we have discussed in class are represented in popular media. The short television clip is surprisingly insightful in the way it presents an issue of discrimination as […]