There's Always a Deviant
One of the few magazine layouts which did not correspond with
Kress' and van Leeuwen's theory of the Given/New is this advertisement for
Winston cigarettes. In this example, the elements are inverted, placing
the "Given," the image we are meant to identify with, on the right side
of the layout, while the "New" image--on the left--is text "introducing"
the product in a "new" way. As the source is a women's fashion
magazine (Marie Claire), it is clear why the Given image is
therefore, a woman too--presumably on the telephone with a boyfriend--and
it is clear that her look of "amused discontent" is intended to
complete the identification. For after reading the text of the "New"
item: Never mess up an apology with an excuse," the woman's gaze is meant
to elicit the tradition of "boys will be boys" but offer an "alternative"
if not "unconventional" response, "Women--just relax and have a
smoke, you can't change men anyway!"
My initial reaction to this advertisement's layout was one of
discomfort. It felt "turned around" to me, but it is difficult to know
if this is merely the influence of Kress and van Leeuwen hard at
work. Did anyone else have an uncomfortable response to this add (the
layout and not necessarily to the message--although that's a little
bothersome too!)?
I would also like to take this opportunity, since we are on the
subject of discomfort, to take a brief look again at the labor chart the
authors provide in their attempt to extend the Given/New pattern to
diagrams and charts. They conclude that the "new" labor force, comprised
predominantly by minorities and women, is presented as "contestable" and
"problematic" by not only their position on the right side of the layout,
but especially by their leftward movement. The effect is a subtle
kind of threat to the "stable" workforce, presumabley less representative
of minorites and women. It is interesting to note that this ideological
tactic is in no way limited to print media, for it is common knowledge
that such a pattern exists too in film, particulary horror films. Western
horror films will generally introduce images of terror (killers, threats
of some sort) on the right side of the screen moving quickly toward the
left, where the victim(s) are generally situated. Conversely, the pattern
is inverted in horror films of non-Western orientation. The terror then,
to some degree, is heightened by an experience of scrambling "comfortable"
orders of literacy; that is, reading left to right or right to left, for a
given culture.
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