Paragraph 6 Alex and Courtney

Robert Scholes' essay On Reading a Video Text explains that as art is developing with technology our culture is reflected in this new art. He uses an example of a Budweiser commercial as an example of cultural reinforcement. This commercial is a narrative about a young African American trying to become a baseball umpire. By understanding the story we prove our competence and demonstrate our membership in a cultural community. For the story to work the umpire is tested and must make the right call and we must know it to be right. The ritual of the umpire making the correct call and the managers charge from the dugout to protest the call is a reflection of our national pastime. This ritual can be compaired to the contemporaries of Aeschylus and Sophocles and how they knew the myths of the greek tragedies. "Baseball is already a ritual, and a ritual we partake of mostly through the medium of television." The commercial has organized these images to create a powerful narrative which reflects part of our culture.