Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Project Proposal

           
     For my final project I will be continuing the work that I began in regards to Jimmy Corrigan and instructions prompt and continued with revision two. I will be slightly revising and expanding my original argument that the men in Jimmy Corrigan view women as objects. I will also be elaborating on the advertisements that Jimmy encounters in every day life and how these advertisements are geared toward the men in the book. I will also examine and compare this to actual advertisements today; I will also examine the use of women as sexual objects in these advertisements and how these advertisements in real life and in Jimmy Corrigan both condition young men to view women in a particular way. I will elaborate on how this process is particularly seen in Jimmy’s view of his nagging mother. I will also delve more in depth to the role that Amy plays in Jimmy’s development and how possibly her character, as a strong female role, helps Jimmy to eventually look past the objectification he had learned.
           
     These advertisements are very prevalent in everyday life and should be relevant to both male and female readers. It would be useful to understand how these types of advertisements affected Jimmy’s ability to deal with women as an adult as well as how they are still affecting men today.
             
     I do not have a fully constructed counterargument yet; however the most probable cases would be that either the images in Jimmy Corrigan are meant as a satirical view of the way men perceive women; or the images can be seen as more or less as a feminist reading of the book and a justification that men, as part of their nature cannot change this view of women.


Bibliography:
-Hewitt, D. (2009). Side Effects of Overprotective Parenting. Retrieved 2013, from Livestrong.com: http://www.livestrong.com/article/48744-side-effects-overprotective-parenting/

-O'Barr, W. M. (2011). Sex and Advertising. Advertising and Society Review , 12 (2).

-Philipchalk, R. P., & McConnel, J. V. (1994). Understanding Human Behavior (8th ed.). (T. Bucholz, Ed.) Fort Worth , TX, USA: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.

-Reichert, T., & Ambiase, J. (Eds.). Sex in Advertising.


-Ware, C. (2003). Jimmy Corrigan the Smartest Kid on Earth. Pantheon.

1 comment:

Adam said...

I'm ok with your sources, although it seems like they should all/mostly relate more directly to advertising and/or advertising culture.

I like the general idea here, although I'm not convinced that you really have a focused argument yet. Clearly there is a relationship between advertising and Jimmy Corrigan (one opportunity here is to engage with Chris Ware's apparent interest in the *history* of advertising - he shows a lot of late 19th century advertisements!), but what is *your* purpose in bringing them together?

From my point of view, the most direct thing to do is to write about the book as a critique of or attack on some aspect of advertising and/or advertising culture (which is one reason I like to teach Ware together with Marcuse). This doesn't by any means need to be your approach - I'm just pointing out that your purpose (and therefore final argument) isn't entirely clear, and that I see one strong possibility already. You might have other things in mind.