Sociology Observation of Two Advertisements Essay -- Sociology Essays

This observation assignment has been very interesting, in that it has made me more aware of advertisements. The two that I chose are Gentleman's Quarterly (GQ) and Vogue, both from September 2014. The ads that I chose are a representative cross-section of the typical ads you would find in these magazines. We will start with Vogue. In Vogue #1, (an ad for Ruddenberry of London) there seems to be outdoor party of some sort going on. There is a man pouring tea with a fake smile. There's another male on seated on a horse, next to a younger female wearing a Mardi Gras mask. At the bottom is a young girl wearing the kind of wig that Thomas Jefferson wore. Most of the characters seem to be younger middle-age characters, and they would seem to be rather wealthy. I can't really make a guess at the occupations, but the guy pouring tea looks like a lawyer of some sort. They seem to have placed the one child character to the bottom of the page, perhaps indicative of the importance of children in this society portrayed. It's also intriguing to note that although we can see the full face of one and almost two more male characters, there are no women showed with their full face: either their head is turned, or their wearing a mask. It would seem that the men are the more important of the sexes in th is ad. This ad is meant to play towards the wealthier crowd, and it is probably meant to make one think of England. There are no other races portrayed in here except for Caucasian, so Ruddenberry is betting on the white crowd to buy their clothes. Vogue #2 (an ad for Kenar, once more a clothing company) portrays the "perfect" family from the 1950's. They all have fake smiles, and this picture of the model family is one ... ...e a musician and the rest of the character's occupations are not clearly defined. This ad is designed to make people feel uncool, so that they go out and buy this fragrance to feel cool. Jazz is very cool right now, and this ad shows that jazzy people wear this fragrance. The two characters in the foreground confused me. They don't seem to fit with the rest of the ad. From these six ads that I've selected, it's obvious that the two magazines I chose were primarily marketed for white consumers. Unless an ad is overly offensive or stereotypical, I don't think many people would get too upset looking at ads. The majority of my two magazines were ads, and most of those were one model standing there, looking beautiful. These ads were a little more interesting, and this observation will cause me to never look at magazine advertising the same again.

This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona

Amanda Sehdev 03/19/2013 Setting Essay In Sherman Alexie’s â€Å"This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona†, a young man named Victor finds out that his father has passed, but can’t afford to travel from Spokane to Phoenix, especially after the fact that he had just lost his job at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The first setting in Spokane describes what Victor and other Indians go through on the reserve, this cultural aspect is actually interesting because nobody knows what others go through and how tough their lives may actually be.Victor asks the tribal council if he can borrow money from the tribal council until he gets the assets that his father left for him. All they can offer him is $100, which he agrees to take. Victor’s mother barely has enough money to help him out and his family doesn’t really keep in touch with him. Victor’s old childhood friend Thomas Builds-The-Fire hears about his issue and offers to help only under the con dition that he can tag along. Thomas is a storyteller on the reserve, who everyone thinks is weird and nobody wants to listen to because he tells the same story over and over again.Victor agreed to let Thomas help him and let him ride along. On the flight to Phoenix, Thomas and Victor were sitting next to a woman, who was flexing her body in all sorts of directions. Thomas embarrasses Victor by asking her questions and talking during the whole flight, even though she did turn out to be a nice woman. Once they landed, they got a taxi to the trailer where Victor’s dad lived. Walking into the trailer was a little hard for the two of them because Victor’s dad had passed away in the trailer and was not found for over a week.They describe that Arizona is over one-hundred degrees during the summer, so I can only imagine the stench that came out of the trailer. Victor told Thomas that he didn’t have to help but he still insisted. After they had retrieved all the belongi ngs that Victor felt was worth keeping, they put their stuff in the pickup truck that his dad left behind and headed home. They traveled through Nevada describing how they didn’t see any wildlife and lack of water. It just so happened that when Victor asked Thomas to drive, he ends up running over the first animal that they see in Nevada. After that, Thomas decided that he should drive again.When they get home, Victor thanks Thomas for his help and gives him half of his dads ashes because they were all like family. Thomas tells Victor that he is going to take the ashes to Spokane Falls, where Thomas’s father had found Thomas and brought him back to the reserve. After they got back and said their good-byes, they both knew things would end up going back to the way they were before. Victor found himself wondering where all the ties of the community went and the sense of the community. The setting in this story is just background, I don’t think that there was much d escribed about where they were or what the surroundings were.

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