Day one of Presentations

The AP Class’s examples of rhetoric were very thought provoking. From Mallory’s examples of Victoria’s secret and Gap Body to Derek’s use of Hollister, I was surprised by how much rhetoric I see in my daily life but don’t notice.
I liked Mallory’s presentation most because you could tell she put a lot of time and effort into finding examples to present to us. Her strongest example of rhetoric was Victoria’s Secret. She pointed out that Victoria’s Secret originally had the Pink section facing the main entrance to the mall then they replaced it with the more risqué section. This is an example of the most obvious use of rhetoric in advertising, sex sells. She then compared Victoria’s Secret to Gap Body, two very different stores in regards to public appearance. Victoria’s Secret featured a black border around the entrance to their store and had very life-like mannequins in sexual positions. Gap on the other hand featured a picture with a woman smiling happily wearing almost all white. The word over the photograph was Love. I would never have noticed any of these appeals to rhetoric had Mallory not pointed them out. Gap sells love and creativity (another example in her presentation) while Victoria’s Secret sells sex and naughtiness. This section of her presentation obviously required thought before and after she went to the mall. Mallory very observantly exposed subtle approaches that gap and Victoria’s Secret used for enticing the American public to their stores.
Derek also exemplified a stores use of sex to sell products. Derek pointed out that Hollister used loud music and sexy half-naked mannequins to appeal to America’s younger generation. I believe Ethan had an example of a Hollister mannequin without a shirt on and almost part of its genitals hanging out. On most days that I go to the mall I probably walk past a mannequin just like it and don’t notice any of these rhetorical arguments.