Modernity: Spectatorship, Power & Knowledge

For the first Image I have chosen the ever famous American style hot dog. This image defines New York to me as hundreds of football fans encourage their players. As people crowd the stands, hot dog vendors all along there are people yelling " Hot Dogs, Get your hot dogs!". This is a norm that to me many people could relate to. I do not personally eat hot dogs they scare me, but aside from the point, the whole be a true American and support your team while eating an all American hot dog is a norm in America for sure. To make my point this image was put on the internet by American Digest.

In this alcohol advertisement this woman is dressed in full on cowgirl clothes. This is the foundation of American culture in a sense. Way back in the day and even up to this day this has been known to be a typical American style dressing, people road horses all the time and had to protect themselves from the hot sun, so the hats would definitely come in handy, heres the catch, vodka is not a typical American drink. You see the cowgirl and then you look at the bottle of vodka and think that she should probably be advertising whiskey by a fire in the country side. So this is not really a normal thing to see in American advertisements, it sends a modernized outlook to me.

Ok so for my last Advertisement I chose a cigarette advertisement because to me a lot of what a typical outlook on America has been all the booze, cigarettes and hot dogs /football games. I decided to leave the football games for another time. This is not a negative blog mind you; to me throughout the years I have seen many movies old and new. In most movies there is a combination of drinking and smoking, you begin to notice more and more actors light up a cigarette. There have been so many cigarette advertisements that basically state that you are not an American man if you don't smoke "these" or you are not an elegant American woman if you don't smoke "those". In this cigarette advertisement there is a catch, Santa and cigarettes do not really go together and they never have. This is strange growing up we are led to believe this is father Christmas come to give us our presents and spread the joy of holiday cheer. Then you add cigarettes to the boiling pot and it is the ultimate message of 'celebrate the holidays with your loved ones on a fine snowy American evening: Oh and smoke!!!' No thank you.