This particular image stood out to me for the fact that it highlights how sport can provide people with an opportunity to accomplish something remarkable. It's an ad with a valuable message and incorporates more of a human approach to connect with its audience rather than a approach to sell. With my video I plan to give off the same emotion of inspiration around what sport can do for individuals.
Breaking down the ad through Barthes philosophies helps you realize that the image is more than just a rudimentary system. When reading the image you can pick out the three components he states are always present, a linguistic message, a coded iconic message and a non-coded iconic message. At first you see a women playing tennis which is the denoted non-coded iconic message but when you have the knowledge behind what this is that you are perceiving the coded-iconic message becomes apparent. It is the 23 Grand Slam title champion Serna Williams... but what about her? This is when the linguistic aspect becomes necessary to add context to the ad. "If they think your dreams are crazy, show them what crazy dreams can do." a statement that makes the viewer reflect about who this person is and what crazy dream they had that got them to the cover of this image. The text is Polysemous as Barthes claims working to attach these floating chains of signifieds. It connects her current platform as a top athlete to her journey, which started as a kid growing up in the impoverished community of Compton with all odds stacked up against her to achieve greatness in a relatively high class sport like tennis.
you crushed this idea of breaking down the ad and looking at the hidden messages!
ReplyDeleteI like how we are all attached to the idea of "slogan", the slogan "just do it" it self already contain the meaning of "nike" at this point after we hear it so many times from the company. It is interesting for me that some words can be linked with some other words which did not have any connection first, but we later provide the meaning to them to make that connection works.
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