Video Analysis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfxwXneCtEM&feature=related

In this Pepsi commercial that was made with music artists: Brittany Spears, Pink, Beyoncé Knowles, and Enrique Iglesias, everyone is dressed like romans to create a gladiator remake. Its starts out with Brittany, Beyoncé and Pink in their little cage-like starting gate where they are all in view with the king, played by Enrique Iglesias. They see him through a crack as he basks in his glory and reaches for a cold Pepsi. They get the beat going of the song “We will Rock you”, by Queen, by stomping their Roman weapons against their cage. When they go out to the middle of the ring the crowd has already caught on to the “stomp, stomp, clap”, and all three women meet in the middle and look at one another as they throw their weapons in a pile on the ground. The king puts on a confused look due to the fact that he was expecting them to battle, it’s then when the three of them turn around and its then when pink yells out “We will rock you!” and they all join in and start to sing. The entire time the king is looking around trying to find an answer to why the fight isn’t happening and why the crowd is so involved in the song and rhythm. The beat of the song that everyone was making causes the kings cooler full of Pepsi to move and fall off the edge and in result the king ends up flying off hos thrown and in to the ring along with the Pepsi. Pink, Brittany, and Beyoncé delightfully enjoy the cold beverage as the Enrique brushes himself off from his fall and at the same time realizes that there is an angry lion behind him.
Robert Scholes, the author of the essay, On reading a video text, talks about ideology and cultural reinforcement. When he writes about ideology he is talking about a type of belief system that can be anything. He relates this to Cultural reinforcement, which is anything that supports or strengthens ideas of cultural knowledge. There are some ideas and concepts that are native to certain cultures and just by living in that culture you become in tune with it; even if it’s not something you are involved with. In this Pepsi commercial there isn’t one person who speaks, just the singing. I related a good portion of this video to women power, I got this impression because it was all women in the roles that men usually play, and instead of them doing what they were supposed to do they rebelled. “Buddy you're an old man poor man pleadin' with your eyes gonna make you some peace some day you got mud on your face you big disgrace somebody better put you back into your place” was the last verse in the song We will rock you, sang by Pink, I felt like this line was directed straight to the king; they were letting him know that he can’t mess with them and that they are strong women. The roman time period setting also helped give this feel because women were used a great deal as a sex image back then, and around 2005-2006 the slogan for Pepsi was “An ice cold Pepsi. It’s better than sex!” It’s very common in America for there to be talk about strong women. To make sure that they aren’t taken advantage of as well as making it clear that woman and men can do the same things, women are just as strong. It’s also not unusual in our culture for there to be commercials with dinks related to some type of sport. It was a commercial that didn’t have a lot of words, but a strong visual and what I thought was a good message. When you don’t like something change it, and don’t let people walk all over you as you do so. There are times when you have to find a different approach to fighting back, just like how they sang instead of battling, it’s not easy, but when you do you can achieve much more.