Week 11, Bundle 7

Goal: investigate greater deviations from the norms of reality, following up on a couple of things included in Bundles 4 and 5 from last week.
Textbook: Chapter 2, 78-89.

I mentioned in lecture last week, and Chandler brings this out in the textbook (in the chapter I didn't assign you to read!), that written texts have a relatively low "reality coefficient" (they present reality without necessarily linking it to anything beyond the reader's imagination and acceptance of the meaning of the words).
- Example: from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter #7 (HP and the Deathly Hallows), a fantasy novel some of you have probably read in your childhood.
  In one swift, fluid motion, Neville broke free of the Body-Bind Curse upon him; the flaming hat fell off him and he drew from its depths something silver, with a glittering, rubied handle.
  The slash of the silver blade could not be heard over the roar of the oncoming crowd or the sounds of the clashing giants or of the stampeding centaurs, and yet it seemed to draw every eye. With a single stroke Neville sliced off the great snake's head, which spun high into the air, gleaming in the light flooding from the entrance hall, and Voldemort's mouth was open in a scream of fury that nobody could hear, and the snake's body thudded to the ground at his feet.
- It can be argued that even the word "the" is unconnected to any true reality here (say, as part of "the snake's body" at the end). "The" identifies a noun as something we can specifically designate, as known to the speaker and the listener (the writer and reader). But if the snake is unreal, how can even "the" be real in carrying out that function?

I am reminded of a famous quote by the American writer Mary McCarthy, who said the following about another, roughly equally famous/important writer named Lillian Hellman: "I think every word she writes is false, including 'and' and 'but'." Here's a link to a discussion of that quote (and I've made a pdf out of that web page in case it ever goes away).

Compare this to what the film feels like: substantially greater verisimilitude (appearance of truth). Here are a couple of scenes expanding on that bit of the book, running from Neville's reawakening to the destruction of Voldemort.
Q1. What makes the film version of this material feel more realistic to us, as modern viewers and readers? Compare the book passage above to what the film clip feels like. Be sure to cite specific details from these excerpts in your response.

Here are a couple of really remarkable ads for video entertainment products that completely transcend what we know about the limitations of reality, in two completely different ways
- Samsung virtual reality system
- Video game called GravityRush 2 (trailer). [This is in Japanese, but don't worry, the small amount of speech is irrelevant.]
Q2-4. For each of these ads, address the following questions: 1) Write a very short (2-3 sentence) summary of the plot of the ad (i.e., the story it tells). 2) What is the primary way in which the ad defies reality? 3) How does this presentation of un-reality promote the product being advertised? (This multi-part question counts for 12 points.)

We illustrated conceptual syntagmatics in lecture with an ad campaign for Apple computers.
Here are some more ads that exploit the conceptual juxtaposition of two separate paradigms of items
- Honda Best Friends (after all, people resemble their pets, don't they?)
- A series of ads for dog food showing people and their dogs. Note how much more impressive this is, with the commercial motivation for producing eye-catching, effective ads.
Q5. Pick either the video ad (consisting of a series of syntagmatically associated images) or the series of similar dog food ads and discuss how they work in terms of syntagmatics. What is the unifying concept that holds each set of images together?