Individual Interpretation

 

An ad will be interpreted differently according to individuals. As Grossberg points out with regards to a "how a fan of Bruce Willis in the TV show Moonlighting sees the Die Hard Movies will be different from how a fan of violent adventure films such as Rambo sees them." (Grossberg 149) Likewise in February 2003 Pony, the shoe company was set to use porn stars as models in their ad campaign. They speak about enticing their male 20 something market, however, the campaign would be directed at both male and females. A teenage girl who likes the Pony brand may have a different view of the use of female porn stars to that of the teenage boy. (http://www.iht.com/articles/87731.html)

The role of a porn star in the Pony campaign can have one of many different interpretations to a young teen or twenty something female. She may be disgusted by a porn stars behavior, she may accept this as a popular ideal of women and try to emulate it by purchasing Pony shoes, she may think it is funny and that is all.

Jenna Jameson, a popular porn star provides her loaded or en-coded image to Pony. To the male audience the understanding is that she is a porn star, and by wearing this shoe is fetishizing or trying to emulate this lifestyle. This concept is a very successful one because of two reasons as Grossberg points out "two reasons they might be interested in it: behavior and meaning. First, one can look for models of behavior, which might take the form of role models…More commonly, when interpreting a text, one looks for some meaning that is not obvious to everyone, some meaning that is, as critics often say, "below the surface"". (Grossberg 150) Here Grossberg is pointing common things people look for in a text if we relate this to the target of Pony the model or role model is a porn star and the meaning is that of this fantasy induced world. In the article that talks about the campaign all seem to agree that whatever convictions one may have all agree that works for the male audience. Critics also note that in its success this is the way the ad industry is going "increasing coarseness of commercial discourse.". As noted in the node concerning what persuades men, they need to be attacked with intense stimulus and when want to be stimulated it is not unusual for them to turn to pornography. (http://www.iht.com/articles/87731.html)

Lisa Ramdial
Student,
Communication Studies Program, Social Science Division,
York University, Toronto