Now, we've mostly concentrated on music and movies as sources of subliminal messages. There are, however, a lot of other places we can find, if we look closely, messages hidden in the content.
First up, and a personal favorite, are comics. Like the disgruntled Disney animators I mentioned in a couple of posts before, some comic book artists can be underpaid, angry at other artists or their bosses, or just feeling particularly devilish and decide to hide something within their panels. Most of the times, it's a subtle reference, or "easter egg", which fans will find amusing and casual readers will not even notice. Sometimes, there actually is product placement, though in the case of comics, it's a much better idea to actually make the product placement very noticeable, as kids everywhere will pay attention to Superman's advice on eating twinkies and Spider Man's choice of Kool Aid. Occassionally, the message is a huge "fuck off" to a writer which insists on being a dick, as seen on the particular case of the Jedi Bates, part of the extended Star Wars universe. In case you are still wondering about that last one, consider that being a Jedi in Star Wars makes your title "Master".
Get it? No? One more time: Jedi Master Bates. Say it out loud. If you're still not getting it, you're probably not supposed to understand it yet. You'll see it when you're older, kid.
Moving on, there are occasional feuds between competing artists that subtly attack each other in their artwork. For instance, when a lazy artist lifts a panel from another comic and just redraws it to incorporate his own characters, it will mostly go unnoticed due to the ridiculous amout of comic books out there. However, in some cases the copied artist will notice, and retaliate via a subtle insult or a full blown, barely covered accusation. Comics. They're a bloody business.
Anyway I'm going to have to cut this short because the world needs me and stuff. To be continued.
I find Easter eggs really interesting, especially those on video games. It makes you think back on how the developer of the game spent hours working on a computer. After these long boring hours, he might have doodled his name or a funny drawing/phrase in an area of a game that is almost impossible to reach, hoping that someday someone will find it. Even though casual gamers won't pay attention to it, players who love the game will feel a bond with the developer.
ResponderEliminarI think that when a kid sees his favorite tv characters eat, drink, or use a certain brand the kid will try to get that product. Why? Little kids look up to their favorite characters(at least I did). Because of this, kids try to imitate and try to look like the figures they look up to: Using the products they use is an easy way to do this. I think this is a great idea to sell a product through marketing. For example: Imagine that Spongebob square-pants worked at Burger King instead of the Krusty Krab: Burger King would become more famous and its sells would increase exponentially because of little kids.
I'd love to draw funny images or write phrases referring implicitly to my boss to make fun of him in my work (In case he is a pain in the ass.)It would be even funnier if he didn't notice it.
Maaaaan, I love your topic! Keep up the good work, I'm digging it.I look forward to your next posts, have a great weekend!
Hi, Max! (: I have to admit that this topic is very interesting. It is something that always catches my attention and even more inside Disney movies. During my last vacations, I bought a comic for a friend and I saw that ind of things that you had mentioned in your post. It is pretty interesting the way how they manage this kind of subliminal messages in order to make the audience to buy certain stuff or, in few words, for marketing purpose. For example, in this short comic book that I already mentioned above, there was one character who was using “Subway” in his clothes or robes, whatever... In my mind I said "this is such a stupid thing to do!" but few minutes later I started to think on a tasty and delicious subway and here is how I noticed that this strategies can seen stupid but they are very effective most of the time. As I already told you, I really think that your topic is awesome and that there are a lot of things that you can talk about it but maybe it would be great if you add some images to your posts... maybe as a support, using them as a way to expose examples or just to make it colorful. Well I think that that's everything for today (: Have a nice weekend and I will check your blog next week ^^
ResponderEliminar