Hans Ong - Individual Essay Assignment When designing an advertisement for any product, a marketer has to contend with multiple factors; from designing the ad so that it is easily comprehensible while still pushing the product, making sure the ad is visually pleasing, ensuring the ad suits the target audience well such that it fits their cultural tastes, making sure it stands out from the competition, and more! It seems then that designing an advertisement is an extremely delicate process, given
“I ain’t got no comfort in this life,” is a dialogue from the film, ’12 Years a Slave’, directed by Steve McQueen, which shows the horrible reality of being a black slave in the period of 1800s. It is based on the real life account of Solomon Northup, a free African American man, who was captured by slave traders and sold into slavery in ‘The Deep South’ in the 1840s America. The film displays the barbarity experienced by him and other African Americans as he attempts to gain his freedom. Solomon
In 12 Years a Slave, “the veil that most concerns McQueen is not the one involving the interior life of Solomon Northup; rather McQueen’s real focus is on the interior life of enslaved women” (Li). This majorly ties in with the idea of gender and sexuality aspect of neo-slave narratives. In the opening scene of 12 Years a Slave, there is a nighttime encounter between Solomon Northup and an unnamed female slave who lies beside him. She guides his hand between her legs and in a very wordless exchange
Steve wanted to make a movie about slavery because it is a huge part of history and there were not many films about slavery. He came across this book and was fascinated by it, he said “every page was a revelation” as it was the first account of slavery. Steve wanted to throw audience into the deep end at the beginning which I realised the film dives into the environment of slavery
Both Beloved by Toni Morrison and 12 Years a Slave, directed by Steve McQueen, are neo-slave narratives. Neo-slave narratives focus on black humanity and the interiority of black lives. These two neo-slave narratives explore the immediate after effects of slavery and how it presently impacts the people that were involved. Bernard Bell first identified neo-slave narratives as “residually oral, modern narratives of escape from bondage to freedom” (Li). Although Beloved goes into more depth on how slavery