Dylan Langei's- "Visual/Video Criticism"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F_G2zp-opg&feature=channel

Dylan Langei
Assignment #3
“Visual/Video Criticism
Robert Scholes profoundly believes that video text is way more appealing to humans in recent years as shown in his article “On Reading A Video Text”. Multiple times Scholes reinforces to the reader that it is way easier to surrender to visual text than a lengthy essay or book, and the power of videos now days has immensely changed. Scholes uses one specific example of video text which is a commercial regarding a black man becoming a Major League Baseball umpire. This video basically shows a poor man meeting his dreams and having to make a difficult call in a baseball game and stick to it; then later the Manager of the team tips his Budweiser to the black umpire in respect. Scholes states that “…video texts confirm viewers in their ideological positions and reassure them as to their membership in a collective cultural body.” This relates to the video of the umpire because the viewer has a cultural understanding of the way black people were not as respected in 1982 (when the commercial was created) that the tilt of the Budweiser sort of showed respect from the Manager. By Budweiser assuming the viewer has that cultural understanding of America it doesn’t need to describe the whole story, they leave some assumptions for the viewer to piece together.

The visual text I chose was the new Geico commercial with one of the three little piggies hanging out the window of a car exclaiming “Wee, wee, wee, wee” all the way home in a very annoying manner. This commercial is selling Geico car insurance, but doesn’t describe the story of the three little pigs in depth; Geico just assumes the American public knows the story. This directly relates to Scholes video about the black umpire because Budweiser assumes American people know that black people weren’t treated evenly and a tip of a beer from the Manager showed respect to the black umpire. So in return, the Geico commercial requires knowledge of a very common American childhood story to fully understand the commercial. Geico ultimately attracts Americans by this commercial because once they understand the concept of the pig that reassures their membership into our culture. Commercials do this to connect to the culture of the American public so that their product is sold. In the Budweiser commercial a tip of their beer can show respect between a colored and white person. In the Geico commercial they use humor and a common childhood story to connect to the viewer and ultimately sell their product.