Reading Response #6

In Cynthia Selfe’s “Lest We Think the Revolution is a Revolution,” it discusses the change that technology has brought upon education. In an interesting narrative “Land of Equal Opportunity” and “Land of Difference,” it goes on to explain that through literature, shows, and the internet that we all have this equal opportunity that is “open to everybody-male and female, regardless of color, class, or connection.” She claims that these ads are injected with images of middle class families, predominately white, with that typical “hallmark” image. I would have to interject from that statement and say that in today’s ads, it seems that there is a melting pot of races and diversity. Anywhere you look whether it is a pamphlet for a college, an ad for sports equipment, or a beer commercial you are going to find a group of mixed races and gender. I do however concur that you never see lower class individuals, it’s always middle to upper class. People turn on the TV, open a magazine, or look at a billboard to see middle to upper class attractive people. Nobody wants to watch a commercial with a bunch of people in poverty, it’s just how are brains are wired from a young age. They hammer the typical “American values” that are traditional and present in everything we view. As said by Selfe, “this cultural memory is a potent one for Americans, and these ads resonate with the values that we remember as characterizing that golden time-recalling for example, the down-home, no-nonsense comfort associated with a good dog, a good pipe, a warm fire, a comfortable pair of shoes, and the other very American comforts accruing from a good salary and hard work in a culture where effort is rewarded with capital gain, regardless of race, color, creed, or class.” These traditional values hit hard with today’s Americans because they are able to relate with the individuals appearing on the television, but this also leaves out a large portion of immigrants, as well as lower class families that we have in this country. If you look at states such as California, you will find being white in a lot of cities a white person will be the minority where Hispanics are actually the majority. These ads are leaving out that large portion of individuals present. I think that today because of the large number of immigrants, ads are adjusting to these differences.