Rhetorical Exigence in Sex Trafficking Ad

In going through the textbook, searching for a topic for this week's blog post, I remembered the section on rhetorical exigence in images. I decided to look for an ad that struck me, and I remembered a friend telling me about a sex trafficking commercial she saw at the gym. I tried to look for it, but couldn't find it. However, I did find this print ad. I think it's an even better example.

http://adoholik.com/2009/06/08/luxembourg-government-human-trading/

The text says: "Every year, 2,450,000 people become victims of human trafficking, of whom 92% end up being used for sex. 98% of the victims used by the sex industry are women and children!" And then, "Method: Following on from a press and poster campaign, real meat trays were placed in the butchery sections of supermarkets, in amongst cuts of meat. At the point of purchase, consumers were directly faced with the fact that prostitutes are the victims of the trade in human flesh."

The text is powerful, but the image makes a much greater impact. The image screams: "humans are treated as meat" and "this woman is for sale." By displaying the woman nude in packaging only used to package meat for sale in a grocery store, she is dehumanized, reduced to only her "meat" or her "flesh." In other words, her worth (evident from the bar code on her package) is only derived from her body. This ad was made by the Luxembourg government to make people aware of human trafficking, and its massive scope. They use the text to urge citizens to stop financing injustice by paying prostitutes, but the use of the woman in the meat packaging is vital to grabbing a person's attention, and it makes a relatable and valid analogy between sex trafficking and the sale of meat. 

I think this is one of the most effective ads that I've ever seen. It caught my attention with the image, and conveyed an important world issue through a common image (meat packaging), that was also an easy to follow comparison.

Pathos in Dove Evolution Commercials

Video from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhib8XiDc9Y&feature=related

As soon as I found out we had a blog post due, this clip popped into my head. It screams "pathos!” I first saw this in a documentary, Miss Representation, a film I'm sure I'll come back to talking about later in the year. But for now, I want to specifically address the Dove Evolution clip. 

The video starts with an average looking woman, without makeup, walking into a studio. Quickly, the film speed increases, and we see makeup being applied, hair being styled, lights being adjusted, and pictures being snapped. Already, the woman looks like a different person. The audience starts to see what a huge difference the application of makeup can make in altering someone’s appearance. This is the first element of pathos: alarming people when they see how much of a difference professional makeup can make.

Then, we watch the picture being edited: the model’s neck is lengthened and thinned, her eyes are enlarged, and her face is slimmed out. And then suddenly, that picture is on a billboard. Here’s another element of pathos: shock. "Can this ideal-looking woman really be that average looking girl from the beginning of the clip? No way!" But it is the same girl.

This video plays on people’s emotions by showing the process of transforming an average looking woman into a model for a foundation ad, which is quite the production! The idea is to first off shock people, by informing them of all that goes into creating the seemingly perfect and effortless image we see in media advertisements. The video is meant to alarm people so much that whenever they look at a billboard or ad in a glamor magazine, they realize just how much work went into making that person look the way they do. And after that effect takes hold, as people think back on the clip, I think the idea is to make people a little angry that they’ve been tricked into feeling they should look like these models, which really are just a product of makeup and Photoshop.

Another thing that I think is interesting is how many beauty ads in general utilize pathos and are aimed at making people feel insecure about how they look, especially compared to the model in the ad, so they go out and buy such and such product. This Dove Evolution clip exposes this, hopefully making the pathos rhetoric seen in ads more visible to people in the future.