Visual Literacy in My Life-Today

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On the first day of Visual Literacy class, Magda talked about "making the invisible visible." Coming into VL, I thought we would be learning about art, about using visuals in the classroom and not really delving into perception and aesthetics as much as we did. I also didn't think of how impactful a lot of the activities would be, or how the movies would make me go AHA! But now, thinking back over the course of our class's experience this semester, I realize that I have learned a lot. Much of the "invisble" has become visible to me.

Aristotelian Aesthetics

I have learned to challenge my judgments, to look past face value and to consider how an object fits into the grander "scheme of things." Everything and everyone in our world is connected (something I learned from Crash), and we have to think about how the way we choose to represent ourselves, and our ideas, may affect others and our world. I also came to understand my own perception, and how perception is SO prominent in the media, advertising and in communication in general. Everyone has their own schema, and each individual's perception determines how he or she interprets a visual. When designing visuals, it is important to consider how the way you choose to represent something might affect different people. I got really interested into perceptual aesthetics during the course of our class, and I will use this new knowledge in my future classroom. Aesthetics is a very puzzling category of philosophy and visual studies, and I am very interested in learning more about this field, especially Aristotelian Aesthetic theory.

The movies and our class discussion was another favorite part of Visual Literacy this semester. Everyone in the class had a different perspective to offer when considering issues and visual theories that we encountered. Now when I watch commercials, I always think of Jean Kilbourn's Killing Us Softly, and I am shocked at how many ads contain subtle messages within the visual choices they make. Thinking about this fact, I wonder how I represent myself with my actions and body language. Non-verbal language, and visuals, say so much MORE than words. You know that phrase "actions speak louder than words,"? Well, it is incredibly true, and now more than ever I am tuned into the way visuals communicate in our society.

I had a great time in Visual Literacy this semester, and I will be able to use my knowledge in my future classroom. I just designed a teaching unit focused on Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. I included an activity that was exclusively about using the visual communicative power of woodcuts in conveying a story. Students have to view different pictures, without seeing the accompanying words, and determine what is happening in the plot. There are lots of resources available out there for connecting medieval literature with art. Thanks to visual literacy, I know I will be more prepared to help students "make the invisible visible," and find deeper meaning from their classroom activities. I want them to look twice, at everything they encounter. Maybe they'll become a famous artist or filmmaker someday, and they can say, "my high school English teacher challenged me to do this." I would be so proud :)

Thank You For Smoking Movie Review

I watched "Thank You For Smoking" the other night, and though I had seen the film before, I was surprised by what I discovered when I watched it again with the knowledge I have gained from Visual Literacy. Besides my love for William H. Macy (he just seems so benevolent! Although not necessarily in this role), I wanted to look at the plot and elements of this movie to see what I could connect with our perception today.

I think the director (Jason Reitman) of this movie wanted to point out how different points of view can really make a topic dynamic and complicated. The character Nick Naylor is a lobbyist for big tobacco, and vice-president for the "Academy of Tobacco Studies." Throughout the film, Nick is constantly defending Big Tobacco and going head-to-head with those opposed, arguing that people have the right to choose whether or not they want to smoke, that it is not the fault of Big Tobacco that smoking is killing, it is the smokers' own problems. Now, for Nick Naylor, being a tobacco lobbyist is "just a way to pay the mortgage." I think this is interested because if you look at a job like Nick's from this perspective, it really is just a job. However, Nick's perception of his job is different than those of people who have lost loved ones to the ill effects of smoking. It seemed like the director wanted to emphasize how everyone has their own personal take on things, and how easy it is for us to put a "spin" on things to justify our actions and our perspectives. For Nick Naylor, he is doing what he's good at (talking) and supporting his son.

I do not recall very many instances where minority groups are featured. It seemed to me that the characters were primarily white. There is one state official present during the end scene that is African American, and he makes the point that Americans need symbols to look at in order to understand a concept or idea. Other than this individual, I did not see many other minority representations.


The director is Jason Reitman, a Caucasian man who is Canadian. I think his background may have played a role in directing the film, because he seemed to have an interest in the story after reading the book of the same title. Therefore, he had to follow the story line of the book pretty closely, with his own interpretation of some of the action. The elements of the book are there, with Reitman's own "spin" on the characters. I think that Reitman did not necessarily eliminate focus on other ethnicity for person reasons; rather, Reitman was just trying to follow Thank You For Smoking author Christopher Buckley's initial descriptions.


Because of the limited instances of minorities in this film, I think people in these groups may be offended simply by the lack of the groups being in the film. I also think that smokers may misinterpret this movie because of the negativity against those who choose to smoke out of their own will. Throughout the film, the emphasis is on the people's choice to smoke (at least that is what Nick Naylor is always saying), and I think that maybe people who choose to smoke would feel offended that smoking is made out to seem so hated and bad. They may feel even more alienated because of their person choices than they may feel in real life, when attention is not necessarily paid to individual smokers.


There are several notable instances where visual means are used to enhance the film and focus our attention. The introductory credits sequence was done with fonts and graphics meant to imitate those on cigarette packaging. I thought this was a very clever way to show how we can be influenced by visual graphics, especially when people are trying to sell things to us. Also, there is an emphasis on how companies, in this case cigarette companies, use catchy commercials and other means to grab our attention. As the senator of Vermont, William H. Macy's character comments 

"they like to use cartoons and symbols to hook our kids," which is sometimes a very true case. Think of the Marlboro man, the great cowboy figure that was bound to interest children in the 60s and 70s. In movies, actors needed something to do while they were talking, and smoking just seemed like a "natural" thing for them to do. 

Advertisement was born inadvertently through movies! Now today, smoking characters have negative connotations, and they probably should have. These different artistic elements employed by the director made the film even more effective in showing us how advertisements can be easily justified, and how important it is to resist falling into the "spin" and to judge things for ourselves, instead of letting others make decisions for us!

AHA! Distortion in the Media, for Women AND Men

Of course I watched Killing Us Softly 3 for our Visual Literacy assignment last week, and I remembered some scenes that Magda had shown us when I took Ed Tech and Design in 2010. My reactions to the video centered around shock and disbelief that there were indeed so many examples of female objectification still in the media today. Maybe I was naive to think that in the 21st century, we would be moving beyond such degradation, but I guess I was wrong. Jean Kilbourn's video contained examples leading up to the new millennium, but I did a little searching and found even more examples of the objectification of women AND men from today's media. Here are some of the most unbelievable and shocking ads:

Ad for XXL Durex brand condoms. Those are band-aids. This is sick.

The "Super Seven Incher"? This ended up BANNED in the US 

This ad was actually banned in South Africa! Wonder why?

The Vampire Diaries is a book target at teens! WHAAA?

And men are being objectified too, and often are even more overlooked than the ads objectifying women. Usually those ads placing men in an objectified position have to do with women being the dominating force in the ad. For example, this:

These boys are whipped...

Clearly, this billboard (advertising "winter hosiery") is telling us that men are dogs, and women are their owners. 

I think the issues that Jean addressed in her video are applicable to both women and men. It is up to us as individuals being targeted by these advertisements to be responsible when assessing their messages.