An example of the contrast between life in the West and life in a developing country is expressed in this image. All actions have consequences, even if these consequences are far away from us, further away in a foreign land. Most of the fashion garments bought in the west are in complete disproportion to the value of a meal in those countries where those same garments are being fabricated.
I this image is a great example that talks by itself, and puts into perspective the way in which we live in the west, and the very different reality of people who hardly have a meal a day. I will perform a Representative Anecdote, Pentadic, Ration and Ideology Analysis of this image to better understand the image that it intends to transmit.
The text on the side of the image with the prices of a meal and of a handbag is already giving us the starting point of two different worlds. After that shocking difference on price and of value of each item, one a superficial bag, the other, a meal to survive the day, there is another text at the bottom of the image encouraging acting on that disparity and doing a donation.
The image is very ironic. A lady dressed and positioned as a model on the sand, with a relatively low quality handbag, and still this handbag is much more than what a meal for that lady would cost. The image is also dramatic and ironic because the bag does not match the place, the way the lady is dressed or the circumstances. It brings to evident the lifestyle of even modest westerns that can afford such a bag. It is not even aimed at the rich but the regular individual.
Pentadic analysis
Act: A lady lying on the floor like a modeling a handbag
Agent: The lady that appears in the image lying on the floor
Agency: Modelling a handbag dressed in her outfit
Scene: The dessert in the middle of nowhere
Purpose: make the point of the disparity that there is at the price of a low quality handbag that most ladies in the west can afford, and it is not a necessity vs. a meal in Africa that is necessary for survival.
Ration Analysis
The ratio I see in this image is a scene being the dominant term and the agent being the subordinate term. The scene being the dessert in the middle of nowhere and of what appears a poor place with minimum resources is in itself a big contrast with the materialistic world that embeds a consumerism lifestyle, completely different than the one the image is showing. The agent is the victim or the result of such a disparity of scenes. Although the image of the city and its commodities is not there, it is implicit and shows how the agent is subordinated to the scene that although in the image is just the dessert it implies through the handbag the world in the west.
Ideology
The Ration Analysis exposes the ideological inclinations about the two different worlds. One represented by a handbag, the other represented by a lady in the dessert modelling the handbag. The exploitation and neglect of people in developing countries, where most of the time are the same workers that produce those fancy items for which in the west are paid ridiculous amounts of money compared to the prices of a meal for those same workers. Ultimately the image gives the idea that we should evaluate how we live and in what we spend our money. It does not say we should not buy a handbag or stop living as we live, it simply triggers a reflection about how we live and in what we spend the money and to spare a moment and do a donation for those in need. If we can afford a handbag, we can afford to buy a meal for someone.
