Blog #3

Ever since I started taking this class, watching shows has become a lot more fun. Looking for the hidden details in a show is like a mystery. Findings the connections between characters and their motivations to do the things they do is what makes a show good. Ideas in a story become clearer to me the more times I watch an episode. The show Sherlock has become one of my favorite shows to analyze. Simple things like a comment a character makes or just a simple facial gesture can actually be a signifier to something deeper. The writing structure in each episode becomes more fluid and almost predictable. At times, knowing what kind of person each character is helped me to predict what they would do next. While sometimes I am wrong, there have been plenty of time where semiotics has proven to help me predict character development.

Besides helping me to better understand writing structure in shows, I’ve also learned to look at media through Marxist lenses. By doing so I feel as if it is easier to pick out which advertisements are meant for different social classes. A commercial for something like an apple watch, or a Ferrari is meant for the hierarchical elite. While a McDonalds commercial is meant for somebody in middle or lower class. What is interesting about these two commercials is that they are both run on the same channel. If you look at it from a Marxist perspective, you realize that this is a form of false consciousness. Commercials meant for two completely different types of people played on the same channel so that they appear to appeal to everyone instead of the intended audience.