Cowabunga

I (finally) graded my students' blogs yesterday. A lot of them did well. Jessica, Cassie, Ricky, Hillary, Kirsten, and David wrote the best blogs from my 101 class (from my perspective). Chaffin, Laura, Erin, Kristen, Max, Rhett, Sydney, and Layne wrote the best blogs from my literature class.

Coincidently, the one class that I'm a student in this semester requires me to blog, and I'm hoping to just post those here. This just means that I'll be blogging (somewhat specifically) on rhetoric about once a week for a while. But I tend to do that in one way or another anyhow. Now, it'll just be more blatant.

For example, we've been reading some of (one-time Tar Heel) George A. Kennedy's Classical Rhetoric. Very early on, he states something that I try to convince all of my classes of:

All communication involves rhetoric. A speaker or writer has some kind of purpose, and rhetoric includes the ways of accomplishing, or attempting to accomplish, that purpose within a given culture. (1-2)

I tend to express this idea more colloquially, usually in the form of the title of a common composition textbook: Everything's an Argument. I try to impress this concept onto my students early and often, even in literature classes.

I've been paying more attention to the rhetoric of advertising, lately. I say "more" because I have always seen through the rhetorical screens of most advertising (not those Ninja Turtle toy commercials, though - they worked every time) and have been fairly successful at avoiding advertisers' sought-after impulse buying.

At any rate, appeals to the wallet have become much more prevalent these days, for obvious reasons. There is almost always some appeal to the wallet in advertisement, considering most ads do try to convince us to buy things. The interesting twist I've seen lately is that some companies are using the term "confidence," as in, "You can be confident in buying our product." I can't remember specifically which commercials use the word (wish I could), but it's implied in the Hyundai Assurance program, wherein they'll "let you return" your car if you lose your income within a year of purchase. I think the "confidence" routine suggests that these companies assume that you're not planning on spending much money at all, whereas I think most companies assume you do have a lot of money to spend. Obviously, the word "guarantee" has been used in this same sense for many years, but I think it has grown tired, hence the move to "confidence." It may seem like a minor change, but these are potentially million-dollar decisions.

Speaking of money, I tend to think many human actions are economically motivated. That's why, when I discovered ashleymadison.com, I assumed that it was a service for people who married into money, possibly those who signed prenups. I'd guess/hope that none of you have come across The Ashley Madison Agency, so it might need some explaining: it's basically a dating/hook up service for married people. The Agency evidently created a Super Bowl ad, but it was "banned in US. Ran in Texas," according to YouTube. Their tagline, at least from the commercial, is: "When divorce isn't an option," or more specifically, "When Divorce isn't an Option." My first assumption, based solely on the ad, was that it was directed towards people with religions that frown upon and/or explicitly deny the Option of Divorce. However, when I discovered the option over Divorce was, in fact, adultery, I assumed that the Agency wasn't aiming for the religious crowd. My only guess, then, is that Divorce isn't an Option because the divorced person would be too poor – post-divorce – to support some desired lifestyle. I suppose there may also be a concern for children's well-being? These are really the only reasons that I could imagine eliminating the Option of Divorce. I think the married-for-money crowd is probably the best target audience, though, considering they would, theoretically, have the money to spend on illicit affairs and illicit-affair creating devices like the Agency.

I've also recently been enthralled by local commercials for Powell Bail Bonding, one of which, though admittedly the least interesting of which, can be seen on their website. Local commercials often have an enhanced sense of bodily communication. You can see in that ad how Zack is particularly uncomfortable in his context. "Katt" seems a little more comfortable – bodily – but there is still an odd emphasis on what he's doing with his hands. Interesting tidbit: Katt was in the first two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, according to his bio. That explains his level of comfort in this ad.

Speaking of visual communication, I (regrettably) watched Hitman last night. I imagine this movie was greenlit specifically for its visual elements, namely the fairly constant nudity of model Olga Kurylenko (which can sell a lot of movie tickets) and shots like this:

These extremely common shots of action going on beyond Agent 47's head and trademark barcode tattoo mimic the feeling of the Hitman games, and I assume this was one of the major selling points for this movie. Beyond that, there wasn't much interesting about this poorly made movie. (By the way, it is nearly impossible to work with pictures on blogger.)

Question of the Day:

Which Ninja Turtle were/are you?

My take: Austin always claims that he was Donatello, which would theoretically make me the Raphael, but I remember more vividly my time as Donatello when playing with Matthew and his brother Nathan. Plus, Donatello resonates more with my own current sense of self, even though I was definitely a bit Raphael-esque at times in my childhood.