Defining Visual Rhetoric – Diane Hope
Progym: Confirmation
In the essay written by Diane Hope, she demonstrates the use of rhetorical advertisement strategies which used the body of women to make the ad more appealing. Hope states “Especially strategic to the rhetoric of gendered environments is advertisement’s cultural ubiquity.” She goes in depth on how society pictures women. An example would be how advertisements involving women are associated with brighter colors to represent a more relaxed and laid back vibe. According to Hope, “Advertisements produced over the last half of the 20th century promoting products to increase a women’s femininity offer remarkably similar images of nature as background to erotic fantasies.” The main objective of the advertisements appears to be depicting women as easygoing and always in the light, as shown by the lighter colors present in many advertisements. Hope’s explanation of how women are portrayed in advertisements is very fitting and does most definitely true.