The American Dream for Sale:

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The American Dream for Sale

• Ethnic Images in Magazines

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(No Transcript)
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Pre-reading

• What is American Dream? What are the
  connotations of for sale? As a society, the
  Americans love sales and have made salesmanship
  and business competition international ideals. So
  shouldnt the American Dream naturally be
  associated with the idea of selling and buying?
• What are your attitudes towards advertising? Is
  it fun? A seductive way to get you to part with
  your money? Cynical? Necessary? Does advertising
  inform people about what they desire? Or does
  advertising create desires? Or both?

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In-reading

• Hanging participle encyclopedia article about
  Hanging participle.
• Ranging in price from 10 to 15 c, easily within,
  they were an. (par. 2)
• Great Depression (par. 5) article about the
  Great Depression
• The Noble Savage encyclopedia article about The
  Noble Savage.

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Building vocabulary

• A. Used in the sense of social mobility, the idea
  that each person should have an equal chance to
  rise or gain a place in society through his or
  her talents
• B. the activities of the skilled and devoted
  housewife who manages the home as her husband
  manages a business the cheery outlook of the
  homemaker, ostensible happy with sharp gender
  distinctions, has given this task and word a
  negative connotation

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Building Vocabulary

• C. a sterotypical or characteristic image, using
  the work stock as in stock in trade, meaning
  the defining practices or standard equipment of a
  person or group

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Building Vocabulary

• D. The five and dime was a general store where
  you could buy more or less anything at a modest
  price, and a wooden statue of an Indian in full
  headress, sometimes holding something for sale in
  his hand, would frequently be found outside the
  front door once one might have said that these
  were five and dime Indians and not the real
  thing, but today these statues recognized as
  demeaning

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Building Vocabulary

• E. like apple pie, meaning composed of qualities
  essentially American but maybe too much so,
  including an implication of race or ethnic
  exclussiveness.

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Understanding the writers ideas

• 1. How to live perfect American life (par. 1).
• 2. Commonly held stereotypes (ar. 4)e.g. the
  courteous but subservient black railroad porter
  (par. 5).
• 3. the production of a plethora of ready-made
  goods, all seeking mass markets, and the
  availability of low postal rates, improved
  type-setting, etc. which prompted the growth of
  popular magazines as ideal vehicles for sales
  messages (par. 2)

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Understanding the writers ideas

• 4. The mass audience required creation of an
  average person (par. 3). Ethnic groups were
  often depicted through commonly held stereotypes
  (par. 4).
• 5. Those from ethnic groups are depicted as
  subservient (par. 5), in a service role (par.6),
  or by the broad-brush stroke of simple external
  attributes (Chiquita banana, the Scotsman in
  kilt) (par. 7-9).

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Understanding the writers ideas

• 6. Magazines.
• 7. In addition to whites, other American groups
  were targeted in advertising.
• 8. Advertising is now directed at specific
  minority groups these ads reflect the
  difficulties of attempting to reconcile being
  accepted into the mainstream and yet sustaining
  ethnic identity.

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Understanding the writers techniques

• 1. In the opening paragraph, the writer lays out
  a many-faceted thesis, the gist of which is that
  images of ethnic groups in magazines reflect the
  economic and social changes of the last century,
  changes characterized by conflicting attitudes
  about ethnicity and the relation between
  ethnicity and the American mainstream.

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Understanding the writers techniques

• 2. To place the depiction of ethnic groups within
  the broad story of the rise of advertising and
  its causes.
• 3. The subservient Negro the Noble Savage the
  colorful foreigner.

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Understanding the writers techniques

• 4. It may not have relied as much on the
  pictorial evidence it may have used less
  accessible (more professionally-directed)
  diction, and more scholarly references. An op-ed
  piece implies a more popular audience than an
  exhibition, and might be written in simpler
  English.

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Understanding the writers techniques

• 5. She offers examples organized by chronology
  and type. Her transitions underscore the
  chronological development, while also using
  helpful linking words An advertisementreveals
  another way (par. 6)

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advertisement

• 7. Literary images are not often as succinct, or
  as graphic as visual images, especially those
  in advertising. Advertising, as the writer says,
  necessitates simplification. Literature aims at
  the greater complexity and ambiguity of life. The
  image of Jim in Mark Twains Huckleberry Finn,
  for example, is made up of a complex actions and
  events, not just one snap-shop. And to this day
  opinions vary as to how Jim should be viewas a
  portrait in depth, or as a stereotype.

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advertisement

• 8. In three ways first, the conclusion brings us
  to the present, ending the chronological
  sequence second, it brings the story full
  circle, from the targeting of whites only to the
  targeting of ethnic groups as well and finally,
  it notes the complex implications and conflicts
  of the present state of affairs, as compared with
  the past.