Essay Assignment #2
D'Amore
Advertisement Analysis
ENGL 106
Post Due: September 22, 2006
First Draft Due: September 25 and 27, 2006, during respective conference sessions
Final Draft Due: October 3, 2006

Assignment: For this assignment I want you to analyze one or more magazine/newspaper/internet advertisements. More often than not, alcohol, fashion, and cigarette companies attempt to lure consumers through sexual exploitation, male dominance to female submission, and societal demands of how a body should appear. These advertisements often attempt to draw the consumer to purchase their products through this sort of imagery. You should construct a solid thesis statement with three supporting topics (e.g. The advertisement for Bacardi on p. 24 of Stuff Magazine attempts to entice male consumers, ages 15-35, to purchase its product by showing homoeroitc images of scantily clad women pressed together, a phallic bottle pointing toward one of the women's vaginas, and the woman in a dominant role as she removes the faceless male's pants):

Things to ask yourself as you're analyzing an advertisement:

• Do the ads promote male/female stereotypes? (Do the ads promote the rugged, masculine male, and/or the impish/thin female?)
• Do the ads imply that the consumer will obtain a member of the opposite sex through purchasing the product?
• Do the ads imply that the consumer will have a "great time" if she or he purchases the product?
• Do the ads appeal to the consumer's sexual desires or romantic fantasies? (Are there any phallic (e.g. bottles, lipstick, eyeliner, stickshifts) symbols? Are the females scantily clad? Are two "beautiful" women standing close together?)
• Are the males dominant to females in the picture? (Is the female looking down and the male looking up or directly at the camera? Is the female seated while the male stands? Is the female much shorter and thinner than the male? Are there many males and one female? Is the male aggressively holding onto the female in any way? Or is the complete opposite true? Or are they both complicit?)
• Do the ads appeal to the overall physical insecurity of women? (Are the ad's models very thin? Extremelly confident? Airbrushed? How so?)

You must be explicit when you write your analysis of the advertisement. Pay attention to all areas of the picture, including the actors (body type, airbrushing, positioning, sex, etc.), background (setting, locale, temperature), lettering (any wording used in the ads), colors (reds? blues? greens? What do these colors imply?), imagery (sexual, stereotypical, racial) and include all of thse things in your analysis.

Your essay:

• YOU MUST HAVE AT LEAST 2 OUTSIDE SOURCES IN YOUR ANALYSIS!!!! (from internet, magazine, journal, etc.)
• You should write an outline; attach it to your essay when you hand it in.
• Do not use contractions anywhere in the essay (this is an academic essay), unless in dialogue.
• Consider your audience; you are attempting to educate readers on the dangers of these advertisements. Be explicit as possible.
• Your introduction should be interesting and draw the reader into the thesis.
• Your thesis statement should appear in the introductory paragraph--the closer to the end, the better. Build up to your thesis.
• Your essay should flow from idea to idea through the use of transitions between sentences and supporting body paragraphs.
• Your conclusion should tie the culiminating events together and present the meaning of your essay.
• You should be as grammatically correct as possible. If you find you are having trouble with grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc., you should make an appointment with the Writing Lab to review your paper before handing it in or see me for specific grammatical rules, such as commas, semi-colons, dependent clauses, etc. The spelling/grammar check on MS Word should be helpful to you, but it is sometimes an asshole and completely incorrect. People are much, much smarter than MS Word.
• You should proofread the work outside of class as well as inside--reading aloud what you have written helps IMMENSELY. You catch many more errors reading over your paper aloud than just reading it silently. I cannot express this enough! There is some faulty mechanism in our brains that makes us miss mistakes while reading silently, but catch them while reading aloud. Trust me on this. And soundproof your office/dormroom.