This commercial can be found here.
The emergence of a butterfly from a chrysalis has symbolized newness, emergence and rebirth for thousands of years. This archetypal icon has since been played out by a Pantene commercial to a nearly ludicrous extent. A young deaf girl slowly transforms before the viewer's eyes from bumbling incompetent on the violin to maestro while Pachelbel's canon resounds triumphantly in the background. At the moment of climax a butterfly pops out of a chrysalis and the commercial ends with "Pantene...you can shine." The fact that a butterfly represents the Pantene logo renders the entire commercial less of a heartwarming piece and more of a sly attempt at base commercialism.
Such heartwarming nonsense is the stuff of a society and globe that revolves around the fragile facade of outward appearance. Forget that the girl is deaf, forget that she strives for greater things-these are distractions. The true focal point of the commercial is simple: The girl has beautiful hair because she uses Pantene, and look how far she's gotten. Pantene explicitly bears down on the feeble, the meek, and the unsure members of the female gender and screams at them "look what you can do! You can be like her. But...only if you have gorgeous hair." Apparently it takes more than hard work and self-esteem to become a beautiful butterfly, it also takes a little shampoo.
I like how the paragraph begins in that you can really see the writer's respect towards the symbol. His then seen disgust at Pantene's use of the icon for their own commercial purposes is a good contrast. I really enjoyed this anaylisis.
ReplyDeleteSeparate the ideas, one paragraph connecting the butterfly with the story and another attacking pantene. Get angry
ReplyDeleteI really like this analysis. It starts off describing the butterfly as an innocent symbol of rebirth, and then suddenly twists, associating the butterfly with Pantene's marketing strategies. You could elaborate more with regards to how this butterfly symbolizes commercialism.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was very well written. The word choice throughout the paragraph was very effective. I think you could expand even more on the idea of the archetypal icon of the emergence of the butterfly.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy the angle from which you approached this commercial. I would expand on this idea of the butterfly as a symbol for rebirth by relating the idea to more specific moments throughout the advertisement. This will give the piece as a whole more substance and will make it more effective.
ReplyDeleteYour word usage is very effective in this piece but you definitely could have expanded more on it. If you added more you could make it so that the reader can see what you're writing about in their mind. If necessary you can even split it into two or more paragraphs.
ReplyDeleteThe language used here is sophisticated and the metaphor made me very interested. However, I believe that the idea needs to be more developed. As well, I see some grammatical mistakes, which don't necessarily take away your meaning, but without these errors this analysis would be enhanced furthermore. The sentence, "A young deaf girl slowly transforms before the viewer's eyes from bumbling incompetent on the violin to maestro while Pachelbel's canon resounds triumphantly in the background," is a little wordy and after "At the moment of climax," needs a comma after it. Overall, it was very well written and clever, though.
ReplyDeleteThe ideas of the paragraph are good ones, what I would work on with it though is expanding it. The writing is good though, and I liked the voice you gave it.
ReplyDeleteThough I really like the rhetoric of this piece, I feel like you could have expanded your thoughts about how is the butterfly a symbol. You could make the comparison between the butterfly and the deaf violinist even more specific, maybe in a new paragraph before this one.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the way this piece was written. It is concise and written clearly. I would enjoy to learn more about the portrayal of butterfly in literature and mass media, specifically in Pantene commercial. Perhaps even expand a little into how other cultures view them. Just to let you know, I completely agree with you.
ReplyDeleteI really like the first sentence and the word choice you use. The sentence, "This archetypal icon has since been played out by a Pantene commercial to a nearly ludicrous extent" doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of your paragraph. Your vocabulary is great! Keep up the good work!
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