See also Chapter 4:

ARTS REVIEW

Lisa Schwarzbaum, The Hunger Games

SOCIAL SATIRE

Jordyn Brown, A Word from My Anti-Phone Soapbox,

PRODUCT REVIEW

Eric Hoover, Monsters U.’s Site Just Might Give You “Web-Site Envy,”

VISUAL COMPARISON

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Crash Test,

GENRE MOVES: EVALUATION

Naomi Klein, From No Logo

TELEVISION REVIEW

Emily Nussbaum, To Stir, with Love

SCIENTIFIC EVALUATION

Michio Kaku, Force Fields

MUSIC REVIEW

Sasha Frere-Jones, The Next Day

TELEVISION REVIEW

Nelle Engoron, Why Mad Men Is Bad for Women

MEDIA EVALUATION

Leigh Alexander, Domino’s, the Pizza That Never Sleeps

GENRE MOVES Evaluation

NAOMI KLEIN

From No Logo

The most sophisticated culture jams are not stand-alone ad parodies but interceptions; counter-messages that hack into a corporation’s own method of communication to send a message starkly at odds with the one that was intended. The process forces the company to foot the bill for its own subversion, either literally because the company is the one that paid for the billboard, or figuratively because anytime people mess with a logo, they are tapping into the vast resources spent to make that logo meaningful. Kalle Lasn, editor of Vancouver-based Adbusters magazine, uses the martial art of jujitsu as a precise metaphor to explain the mechanics of the jam: “In one simple deft move you slap the giant on its back. We use the momentum of the enemy.” It’s an image borrowed from Saul Alinsky, who, in his activist bible, Rules for Radicals, defines “mass political jujitsu” as “utilizing the power of one part of the power structure against another part[;] . . . the superior strength of the Haves become their own undoing.”

Establish your own criteria by borrowing from others.

For any evaluation, a key task is to clearly establish the criteria you will use to evaluate. What makes the act or object that you are evaluating good or bad? How can it be fairly measured against other similar acts or objects? In “Culture Jamming,” a chapter from her book No Logo, Naomi Klein lays out her own criteria: The best culture jams “intercept” and “hack.” But then she uses ideas from Lasn and Alinsky to expand on these criteria by relating the best culture jams to jujitsu in terms of their deft maneuvers against powerful enemies. Expanding her criteria allows her, later in the chapter, to evaluate other groups’ culture jams with a precise, critical eye. Her criteria are clear, but they are also supported by the criteria of other experts.

As you develop criteria for evaluation in your own essay, look at how other experts have evaluated your object or objects like it. You can borrow some of their criteria and justifications to support your own. Or you can disagree with these experts, especially if their criteria show a bias or are based on unrealistic expectations. Don’t be afraid to borrow and modify ideas from others, even as you develop your own unique evaluation. Just be sure to cite properly, as Klein does.