Another Great Day

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Another Great Day

By Ruth Peyser
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Outline

• Questions for Close Analysis
• Images for Semiotic Analysis (systems of signs)
• Is she really alone? (space)
• What do you think about this image of a
  housewife?
• I'm in a way saying things shouldn't be like
  this. It's a harsher side of life, but it's a
  reality. - Ruth Peyser

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Questions for Close Analysis

• 1. What kind of life is this housewifes like?
  What does she do, and not do?
• 2. Is her life completely uneventful? What
  populates her life? Where can we find ironies in
  it?
• 3. How does the animation begin and end? Are
  there recurrent images? Why is the woman only in
  underwear?

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A Housewifes Life

• Listening to the radio, and/or watching TV
• Eating breakfast
• Doing dishes dancing with the TV
• Walking
• Nursing a baby/doll
• Reading a romance and fantasizing.

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The Ironies in her life

• alone at home, begins and ends her day with the
  radio program
• Wonder word hostage
• Wants to kill
• The content of the romance.
• Her isolation

• Another Great Day
• Call-in radio program
• Child care TV images
• Sexual fantasies
• The busy sounds and street scenes

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The content of the romance

• Before she could prevent him, he was kissing her
  wildly, possessively and passionately.  His lips
  were on her mouth, bruising it with a strength. .
  . His arms tightens her.  She could not even cry
  out.  A long long way, she could hear his voice,
  triumphantly, "I love you, you're glorious,
  adorable, a little white flower.

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Daily Activities (1) dancing identification
with TV images

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Daily Activities (2) eating commercials food
images

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Daily Activities (3) Fantasizing? From
smothering to strengling

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Daily Activities (4) loneliness

Beginning . . .
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Daily Activities (4) loneliness

Ending . . .
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She is actually not alone. . .

• her life completely penetrated by mass media and
  the public sphere.

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Sound Intrusion of mass media

• Call-in radio program
• Noises from TV program
• Telephone rings seems to be hers, but it turns
  out to be the radios
• The words on the bookslike hands on her body

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Image Contrast mass media vs. the Housewife
As the baby cries
After the sexual fantasy scene
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Images of Penetration or Intrusion

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Lurking Sense of Danger

• After the housewife cannot get the wonder
  word

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The Ends Justify the Jeans
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Interpellation of the Mannequins
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Male Spectators
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Social Superego
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What do you think about this image of a housewife?

• Not always so lonely or passive in todays
  society, but could still be conditioned by mass
  media.
• The blurring of the boundaries between the public
  and private spheres could be true to every one in
  our age. ? flows of information and commodities
  ideology mass media.