Gillette's Glutinous Grievance (I really enjoyed writing this)

Gillette's recent commercial started quite the uproar just last week as waves of viewers, men in particular, took a stand against the company in disgust. The commercial itself is structured sturdily but issues of context and modern culture are what gave it such a negative impact. 

The advertisement makes use of different methods of persuasion to communicate their idea. Personally, I think they wanted to give the audience both a wake-up call, and a rally. A rally to unite. Although looking through comments and the general public's reaction shows that that intention back-fired. In their ad, Gillette makes use of the three persuasive techniques: Pathos, ethos, and logos. Some examples of these techniques can be viewed as followed:

-Ethos: Up until we were 55 seconds into the video, there was a constant use of ethos. The second the video starts, there is implicit mention of multiple occurrences of sexual assault and harassment. For men that are loyal to this product, starting off like this will definitely get their attention, but their first impression is likely negative. As time passes on we see (and more importantly, hear) more and more direct confrontations of this dangerous topic. They make it clear as day that this is an issue everyone, especially men, must face. At first we can only hear the confrontation but soon, they explicitly show a collage of news reporters talking about the subject of sexual harassment.

-Logos: After the first half of the video has shown us the worse side to man, we are met with a more uplifting feature to this commercial. It shows us simple solutions to variations of sexual harassment and violence. They tell the audience that we can make a difference with the simplest of actions. Telling us to be reasonable and as Terry Crews says: "Men need to be hold themselves accountable for other men"

Pathos: It isn't as often or explicit as the other two, especially not ethically, but it's still there. Sprinkled throughout the video there are also a few appeals to our emotions. Though I'd like to focus on the two I thought were the strongest. During the first half, at second 13 to 17, we see a huge topic in modern society within a few seconds it has on screen. Bullying. Cyber-bullying to be precise (as well as a prologue to physical). We see a text pop up, "FREAK" and shortly after we see the boy who got this message hugging his mother in tears. At this moment we can still hear the implicit news reporters in the background as they distantly chatter about bullying. The boy gets more negative and insulting texts as he cries in his mother's arms. This is an emotional push compared to the rest of the video that also brings up another serious world issue in a matter of seconds. The mother and son are soon washed over by some running children. If you look closely though, you'll realize these are the same children who can be seen at the end of the video, a group of bullies chasing a smaller boy who is later saved by a role-model father. The second is the last words spoken by the narrator. These words leave the viewers with something to think about after they've seen everything. Leaving a long lasting impression to ponder. After telling us to make change he gives us one final thing to think about. The boys of today, will be the men of tomorrow. 

Those defending men's rights have gone haywire seeing this ad. Many find it inspiring but others find it offensive and crippling. In this day and age, we need to be extra careful of what we say and how we say it. This ad most likely riled up people watching with how direct it became to the point it was too late to bring the intended feeling of unity by the time half the video had gone by. An interesting idea brought up by a speaker on "Good Morning Britain". Not as many women took offense to this advertisement nor understand what has men so betrayed. What if a commercial came out the same why, but the first half were to be confronting women that make false harassment allegations and taking advantage of men or the law for their benefit? What would the impact be on the ad's audience? 

Adverinfotainment: Gender Ads Analysis

In order to strike the attention of as many viewers in the intended audience as possible, many companies rely on stereotypes and other eye catching techniques to keep the viewer watching. Among these are stereotypical or interesting gender roles. Today's aim is to review a couple of ads for America's Number One Detergent: Tide. 

Up top, a video from 2014. This Tide commercial features a average looking man who speaks with confidence who is used in the decorative portrayal of Tide Boost. The man from the start, appeals to his parent portion of the audience, first addressing the moms watching. The mothers stereotypically being the most interested in cleaning and laundry. After calling himself handsome and "alluring" due to his combination of masculinity as well as experience of parenthood. 

This second commercial is once again set in the house setting with what is presumably a "dad mom", who has already been titled by Tide as the mothers' favorite. In this ad, the dad mom is cleaning while explaining his children's shenanigans. through doing this Tide is able to bring out the familiar feelings parents experience with their troublesome tots. This dad mom also keeps a very lighthearted approach as he plays along with his child's excuse of not being responsible as many parents might experience. With the introduction of a dad mom, a stereotype is broken but its replaced with a masculine person with the motherly role as the setting is also set, as the both previous times it was a home.

After the introduction of Tide pods, a controversy appeared due to their danger to children who ate them. Consequently, Tide took a blow to its sales, but when the super bowl came along, Tide's reputation was redeemed, essentially taking over the super bowl's commercial feed. It follows one of the characters of the popular tv show, Stranger Things, as he leads misleading commercials only to loop back to how clean the people's clothing are, thanking Tide. The company also uses plenty of attractive men and women during this collage of commercials as you, the viewer, are presented with clean clothing and suggestive eye candy in the form of attractive actors.

Linguistic Imperialism: The Value of Preserving Indigenous Language

Language is the ultimate form of communication. It is also very diverse and complex, joining different meanings to a person's lifestyle. As certain languages grow stronger, their influence spreads to others. This spreading of language can result in the slow assimilation of language and culture. This can put weaker, less known languages at risk.
An aboriginal language is a language existing in an area before any imperialism, a language used by the aboriginal people indigenous to that region. These languages often have a history behind them. Aboriginal languages with rich vocabularies to describe the natural world especially, have knowledge about a society's history and culture within their dialect. In a passage in "Speaking in Tongues" the writer states: "The evocative imagery they contain expresses how closely the aboriginal clans are linked with the land." This link the people have with their land is progressively lost as time moves on. The language slowly becomes more and more irrelevant to them, as this happens, the language loses its value. With the loss of this value, a piece of history and knowledge disappears.
When a language runs out of speakers, the knowledge stored within it slowly disappears as less people live to understand and regurgitate it. Consider a record of herbs and agriculture around a remote area is kept in the corresponding language, as less people are able to understand the record, this information becomes both priceless, and worthless. Soon, the language dies out, and now this information, no matter how useful and important it could be, has lost it's value, along with the language. Without people who can teach and keep these languages, we lose the potential to learn more. According to the article, Nicholas Evans, a linguist specialist and head of linguistics at Melbourne University gives credit to these less known aboriginal tongues for advances in science.
Another reason the preservation of indigenous is so important is your identity. A piece of your heritage lies within your mother tongue, and that heritage is a big piece of who you are. With dominant languages like English taking over, fewer people have the need for an unpopular language. Consequently, the next generations of speakers are losing interest in their mother tongue, diverting to a more dominating language instead. Opposite to what most would believe, it's much more valuable to keep the languages alive. The world can learn from languages just as they can learn from teachers. That is why these dying, endangered languages are so valuable to save and keep alive.