In Robert Scholes’ essay titled “On reading a text”, he dissects the art of film, pointing out the purpose of close ups, slow motion, filters and color use. He writes that they are all important in offering “change from the normal”. I especially liked the part in the second paragraph where he says “By cultural reinforcement, I mean the process through which video texts confirm viewers in their ideological positions and reassure them as to their membership in a collective cultural body”. I will go deeper into my opinions on that passage later. He then describes how this function was previously performed by literature and art, but that since they are now not as popular, the media has taken over that position.
He then goes on to describe a Budweiser commercial about a black man fulfilling his lifelong dream of becoming a baseball umpire and after making a close call correctly, is accepted and toasted with a Budweiser by the manager, showing acceptance and validation. He says that in that short 28 second commercial, the media is playing on subtle nuances carefully constructed to let us believe that we have an understanding of greater cultural issues (in this commercial, the lack of African Americans accepted into important economical and societal roles), and get to celebrate his success with him. He also says that to accept the pleasure of this text is to believe that America works as a society, and can take comfort in that.

Sholes’ concludes by saying that in order to successfully analyze this commercial, we must recover from the surrender to the text, and must have tools of ideological criticism. He says that in this age of massive manipulation and disinformation that we must criticize everything in order to take it seriously.