Andrew Rudd
This video is part of a course focused on unpacking meanings from media texts. In this text I look primarily at screen position as one of the FORMAL SIGNS or TECHNICAL SIGNS that this commercial uses to build emotion and associate characters and plot with screen position.
While in this video I am using a feminist critique to analyze the story of Juan and Sara (and extra gum) I think that there are many cultural meanings that you can derive from an epic commercial like this one.
I’d argue that you can easily make the argument that this commercial offers a more progressive (subtle) argument about trans-racial romance. While Sarah’s parents seem to be delighted to get her out of town after high school and away from her artist & latino boyfriend — in the end TRUE LOVE conquers all (a conventionally romantic ending for American stories, but spiced with the invention of a romanticized interracial romance).
Here’s one of the many versions of this commercial that you can watch in its entirety: