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Time Bind Mom, p.2


AT&T25-99
AT&T25-99
AT&T25-99
AT&T25-99

Hopping about trying to finish getting dressed, putting on her makeup, and gathering together her portfolio materials for her meeting.

Mom calls back, "Look under the table," before adding on a reminder about rules, "No TV all day, remember?"

The door bell rings. Mom hops to the door while trying to put on her second shoe, the baby preoccupied with the bottom refrigerator shelf.

The oldest daughter replies to her mother's assertion of tv watching rules, that "Our babysitter watches TV all day."

A middle class professional trying to balance homelife and worklife, the woman's relationship with her children is laid out in the dialogue and their video-mediated interactions. The mother-daughter exchange regarding TV watching rules is suggestive of their dynamic. The mother attempts to reinvoke a governing rule about restricting television viewing while she is gone. Her daughter's rejoinder challenges the fairness and rationality of this rule. The rule seems arbitrary (and unenforceable) insofar as the babysitter disregards it. She is finishing this thought when Mom opens the door to reveal the babysitter who has just been 'outed' for breaking Mom's no TV rule, and undermining her authority. Mom is too hurried to concern herself with this breech. Viewers are apt to note the blank look on the babysitter's face. This 'teenager look' lends a note of authenticity to the ad, and is an important means of 'hailing' the intended audience who may already recognize similar looks from their own experiences.

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New Economic Formations
Commodification
Social Relations of Production
Information Economy

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Robert Goldman, Stephen Papson, Noah Kersey