I would list ‘performance’ and ‘great engineering’ as the most important repetitions,
power and modernness as the most important strands, and lines/roundness and two halves
as the most important binaries.
I would say performance, modernness, and lines/roundness are the most important
details. All three of these contribute to the immediate feel of modernness and good
functionality of the advertisement. All three of these are related, the rounded, angled lines
contribute to a sense of modernness, as does the color scheme, the clean layout, and the
emphasis on the measurable performances of the vehicle.
For my cultural text I chose Arrested Development, specifically the 11th episode of the
1st season which is entitled Public Relations. The representative detail I chose was a fictional
school entitled The Milford Academy.
The most prominent detail was the credo “children should be neither seen nor heard.”
This mindset of the school has the implication that children should not participate in their own
educations, rather they should just be static observers. The fact that this is a comedic
element makes me think that most viewers will see this as an exaggeration of the reality of
many such ‘academies;’ that in reality the traditions and prescribed ways of teaching are more
important to some schools than the interaction with the students themselves.
Another detail was the repetition of the phrase “Milford man.” The repetition of this
phrase shows that there is a definite identity or model for what a graduate of the school
should be. This implies that the school has specific ideal identity for their graduates. The
repetition also has the implication that “Milford Man” is a sort of title: it is something to be
proud of that you graduated from that school.
The third detail I noticed was that the founder of the school ends up by himself at a
nursing home. Along with this observation was a statement by the new headmaster, his son,
that he is distancing himself from the traditions his father set. The distancing in principles
implies a somewhat estranged relationship. I found it interesting that despite being the
founder of a prestigious school, a man who accomplished a lot, he ended up at a nursing
home isolated from his son where the founder is admittedly unhappy.
Another detail I found interesting was a snippet where one of the characters says ‘The
graduates go on to do great things” and then there is a fast cut to one of the characters doing
nothing but remaining out of sight. The purpose of this cut was obviously to highlight the irony
of the statement, but if the school is meant to mock actual schools by exaggeration, this part
may be saying that graduates from these type of institutions do not always become
successful in the real world.
The fact that the son does not want to attend the Milford Academy also interested me.
What this shows me is that often these type of schools are not very enjoyable and possibly
that the families who typically enroll in these academies disregard their child’s happiness.
