Conversations Beyond the Classroom (Eng 100L): Subaru Commercial analysis

Welcome!

Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Conversations Beyond the Classroom”! The title of this blog refers to the community of active readers & collaborative learners we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with each other + a larger group of students, instructors, academics, and just about anybody who chooses to follow our blog! When you write and post your reader responses here (and, later, as you write your essays for the course), I encourage you to use this audience to conceptualize who you are writing for and, most important, how to communicate your ideas so that this group of academic readers and writers can easily follow your line of thinking. Think about it this way: What do you need to explain and articulate in order for the other bloggers to understand your response to the essays we’ve read in class? What does your audience need to know about those essays and the authors who wrote them? And how can you show your readers, in writing, which ideas you add to these “conversations” that take place in the texts we study?

As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).

Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!

--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Subaru Commercial analysis

This Advertisement starts out with a dirty Subaru pulling into a parking lot to be washed, Then it turns to a large group of male sumo wrestlers walking towards it with buckets and sponges. They proceed to wash the car in slow motion, pressing their bodies against the windshield, spraying each other with water, one whips another with a towel but it appears to be all in good fun. Then the camera pans towards to an astonished elderly man and women who presumably are the owners of the car. The narrator says "Japanese SUVs just got a little bit sexier" and the commercial cuts.

This advertisement is going for a humorous approach. In American culture car washes are generally thought of with sexy women in bikinis doing essentially what the sumo wrestlers did. The commercial is trying to connect with the viewer by doing the opposite of what the viewer expects. It puts Sumo wrestlers who aren't really considered sexy in the roles of people who are typically sexy. Another thing that adds to the humor is the shot of the astonished old couple. Culturally we think that elderly people and their conservative ways are to be respected but yet again the commercial aims against the obvious. The situation that the sumo wrestlers place the couple in makes them feel uncomfortable and even potentially disturbed. The narrator claiming the car wash as sexy is mocking the fact that Americans culture doesn't think obese men in underwear is attractive. The commercial is mocking an American cultural narrative but by doing so it's also proving it exists. I personally liked the idea for the commercial, it made me laugh and in my book any commercial that can make me laugh gets my approval.

3 comments:

Dillon FinneganSeptember 30, 2010 at 3:38 PM
Dillon Finnegan
Brandon Simpson
Halee Orme

Q:8
The fact that its non-attractive people doing what some would thing as a supposedly "sexy" thing to do in american culture, such as pushing their chest up against the window. In this add they are showing their japanese pride by using Sumo Wrestlers to represent a japanese made SUV.
Q:9
The slow motion adds to the effect of the "sexyness" as well as the fun factor they are trying to portray, such as whippping, throwing, and spraying.
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iwells40September 30, 2010 at 3:47 PM
By Perry and Ian

The oppositions in the commercial are young vs. old; the elderly couple having a rough terrain vehicle. The subaru is a brand new outdoors vehicle that usuaully appeals to the younger crowd. The commercial clearly shows the vehicle dirty needing a detailed car wash, but favorably adds the unatural feeling to the clip with huge, sumo men. These makes the commercial have a mre comedic nature and disturbing.

The audio influences the text with the music most commonly associated with good looking women, but in this instance sumo wrestlers are the subjects of it, adding a twist of humor to the commercial. As the viewer you are expecting to see the exact opposite of what you are presented. The music also represents the elderly couple with the older generation of tunes.
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AshleySeptember 30, 2010 at 3:49 PM
Subaru:

10. The audio and musical component of the text influence our reading by when the guys first come to the car the music kind of states that they think they are cool, the music escalades to the climax of the water fight between the guys.

2. The gap between the actual myth and reality are that the guys represent the hot females that usually wash the car, but in this ad its fat sumo wrestlers. The ad hopes the viewer will surrender to the knowledge that anyone can wash a car in a sexy way.
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