Telephone

The chosen cultural artifact in American visual culture that intrigued me most is the telephone. The telephone is an object that has been used throughout the years of movies and television. There is a great, maybe even unknown, impact when we here the ring of a telephone.

Content

The phone is what it is, a tool used to connect one person to another and even two yet another person at the same time. The telephone is an object of communication. The characters in a television show or film inarguably hear the sound of a telephone ringing or buzzing.

Form

Not much can be said about the telephone in regards to form although what can be said has a big impact on what makes a good movie. A director can use the ring or vibration of a telephone to his or her advantage. The sound can definitely raise the tension in an already tense scene: the close call of an undercover police officer being discovered and suddenly the his cell phone rings only to heighten the viewers' fear and the character's fear of being found out and facing a very dangerous consequence.

Context

The type of telephone sends out a message of what time or place the setting is held in. The color of a telephone may even send out a certain message; the mayor's red phone directly connected to Batman's telephone. The certain size of a cell phone can tell the viewer if the film is set in the 80's or not. The type of phone tells shows us what time frame we are in, an older film would not show someone dialing a touch tone phone or cellular phone to call for help. It would rather have someone turning a wheel or even picking up an earpiece and yelling into a mouthpiece, attached to a box hanging on a wall nearby, for the operator.

Aesthetics

A telephone makes the world a whole lot smaller than it really is; it connects people from one end of the hemisphere to the other. People are social beings and like to stay connected