Coming to terms with Scholes essay "Reading a Video Text"

P. 6 & 7

For the story to work, of course, the ump must make the right call, and we must know it to be right. Here, the close-up and slow motion come into plat-just as they would in a real intant replay-to let us see both how close the call is and that the umpire has indeed made the right call. The runner is out. The manager's charge from the dugout is classic basball protest, and the ump's self-control and slow walk away from the angry manager are gestures in a ritual we all know. That's the way it's done. We know these moves the way the contemporaries of Aeschylus and Sophocles knew the myths upon which the Greek tragedies were based. Baseball is already a ritual, and a ritual we partake of mostly through the medium of television. The commercial has only to prganize these images in a certain way to create a powerful narrative.


At the bar after the game, we are off stage, outside that ritual of baseball, but we are still in the world of myth, The manager salutes the ump with his tilted bottle of beer; the old man achknowledges that youth has passed its test. The sword on the shoulder of knighthood, the laying on of hands, the tilted Bud-all these are ritual gestures in the same narrative structure of initiation. To the extent that we have wanted this to happen we are gratified by this closing scene of the narrative text, and many things, as I have suggested, conspire to make us want this ending. We are dealing with an archetypal narative that has been adjusted for maximum effect within a particular political and social context, and all this has been deployed with a technical skill in casting, directing, acting, photographing, and editing that is of a high order. It is very hard to resist the pleasure of this text, and we cannot accept the pleasure without, for the bewildering minute at least, also accepting the ideology that is so richly and closely entangled with the story that we construct from the video text. To accept the pleasure of an even higher order-for as long as we maintain it. Does the text also sell Budweiser? This is something only market research (if you believe it) can tell. But it surely sells the American way first and then seeks to sell its brand of beer by establishing a metonymic connection between the product and the nation: a national beer for the national pastime.




3. What are some questions you have about this reading, these two paragraphs in particular? Write those questions down and attempt to respond to them as a group.

-What does the Greek tragedies have to do with the commercial? -Samantha and Rebecca

The Greek tragedies have a great pole on the Scholes commercial because the Greeks actually invented two kinds of drama which are Tragedy and Comedy. I think in the Bud commercial they were referring to the way the Greeks would put together Tragedy and Comedy to make an amusing and dramatic commercial that would attract customers!

Video texts invlove a complex dynamic of power and pleasure, therefore I think by the ump being angry at the manager, a the dugout position for calling him out, (Power over the ump) all the manager has to do is offer the ump a great tasting beer and the ump is more relaxed, and a little buzzed! (Pleasure over the beer)

Q) Who were Aeschylus and Sophocles?
-Aeschylus is the first of the three classical dramatists of the 5th century! He was a young writer and was a witness to some historical events like the exile of Hippias (A bitter and cruel ruler of the Athens) He also created a democracy.
-Sophocles- an accomplished actor and studied all arts, went on to be the greatest play writer of the golden age.

Q) What did Scholes mean by "To sell the brand of beer you must find a connection between the product and the nation: a national beer for the national pastime."
-"The national pastime" means that the directors were aiming for what Aeschylus and Sophocles were writing for, to create a commercial using drama and comedy which creates an amazing shoot that everybody wants to watch. (The angry ump, the manager with the beer tilted to the umps beer, in the end everybodys happy.)