Sunday, October 7, 2012

Blog Group # 4

 
 
Above the Influence | Sick



I first saw this commercial on television. It is an anti-alcohol abuse ad focused on teenagers. I chose it because I thought it was an interesting way to present an anti alcohol ad. It paints drinking in a negative light during the entire ad.  I feel that it has a powerful message against underage drinking.

 

1)      Does the female’s appearance (runny make-up, disheveled clothes etc) have significance in the overall message of the ad?

2)      What is the significance of using a female getting sick rather than a male? If it had been a male stumbling into the stall, would you have the same reaction to the commercial?

3)      Is the producer of the commercial trying to say anything by not having any actual words spoken in the ad?

4)      Could this ad be targeting an age group other than teens?

5)    Does the overall setting/ atmosphere contribute to the message of the ad?

7 comments:

  1. Blog Prompt 5 and 4)

    The setting of the commercial contributes to the message of the ad very little. The atmosphere is a bathroom, which could either be at the girls house or a party. It has little significance other than the fact that she could be at a high school party. Blog prompt 4 addresses the whether the commercial targets any other group than teens, and I believe it does. When the girl is throwing up, and the pictures of her family, friends, and tennis trophy it targets the girls parents. I believe it is targeting parents to not allow to throw her life away, and maybe urge parents to talk to their children.

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  2. I disagree with Louis. Although I think you have a good point that the commercial urges parents to talk to their kids and communicate about underage drinking, I disagree that the commercial is targeting parents. It seems like the ad was implicitly saying to teens that all the things you have worked so hard for, all the friends you have made, and all your accomplishments are going down the drain when you make bad choices. I think the commercial is targeting teens, and urging teens to make the better choices. The commercial is showing a female teen who is drunk, and has ruined everything she worked for. THe commercial adds to that by saying "you're not the only thing getting wasted", which singles out the teen girl and the choice she made, furthering the commercials argument to its target audience.

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  3. Blog Prompt #6

    The maker of this commercial is making a claim that when people abuse alcohol their lives are going to waste along with all the aspects of life that factor into their happiness, such as friends, family, and success. When the girl in the commercial gets sick in the toilet, rather than the waste that would typically be there, a picture of herself with two others appears in the toilet. This signifies the way that relationships go down the toilet when a person begins abusing alcohol. When she gets sick again, a variety of objects appears, including a trophy, a letter from a letterman's jacket, drawings and notes, more pictures of the girl with friends. This signifies the girl flushing her accomplishments, memories, and relationships down the toilet. The maker of this commercial is making a claim that when people abuse alcohol they throw their lives away.

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  4. prompt1
    There are several visual elements used in this ad to show how bad it is to addict to alcohol, such as the pictures taking with the girl's friends and some baubles labeling he girl's sweet menories were fading away in the tiolet, and the girl's tears through her cheek. All these elements showed her regret to be an aclholic, which means she didn't mean to leave away with her sweet life before with her close friends and happy memories. I have noticed that, every time the girl throwed up because of too much drinking, the sick feeling will evoke her past fun memories. She really missed her past life which was much more normal than now.I felt sympathetic to this girl when I saw the tears through her cheek. The girl didn't show a very strong emotion through the tears, but I knew that was her exetremely true feelings and emotions because the tears were continuous, and there was a sorrowful expression on her face.

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  5. I think the reason for the creator to use female character rather than male is female are more likely to be more emotional and sensitive than males. It's easy for a female to remember old things with happy or bad memories, but males will forget them very quickly. What's more, in a common view, females are more vulnerable and flimsy than males. For example, when girls saw their past photoes taking with their friends, they would remember many old things, but for boys, this doesn't happen very often. Since building relationships is more important for females while dealing with problems is more important for males, so using females in this ad can connect a relationship with audience, it can also affect and arouse more peopel's feelings, because female characters can act in a more smpathetic and emotional way.

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  6. I think yuyao Chen makes a very powerful point. This ad is probably mostly target at teenage girls. Most teenage guys wouldn't be too worried or moved by a commercial that warns you about loosing the sentimental things in life. If this commercial were targeting guys I think It would/should target the loss of friends/girlfirend or public embarrassment. I do however think that this commercial makes a strang point to young women. Being a teenager isn't easy we all know, we've all been through it. Speaking as someone who has been a teenage girl the things I worried about loosing most were my family friends and my reputation. These are the things that the girl in the video was loosing because of the alcohol. Along these same lines I think this video makes an interesting paradox. Most high schoolers party and get drunk as a way to become make friends and fit in. This video is telling them the exact opposite.

    The other point I would like to make in criticizing my own post, and a previous one is that a lot of steryotypes were made concerning teen boys and girls. It does not initially appear that this ad targets teen boys but I would be curious to discover if it did in fact affect any of them.

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  7. Prompt #1
    Although the girl's appearance is important to the ad, I do not believe that it has that great of a significance to the overall message. The girl stumbling in to the bathroom, unable to walk in a straight line, shows us right away that she is not sober. The clothes and running mascara just clarify the fact that she is, in fact, drunk. This is definitely significant to the ad since it is about underage drinking. However, I think that the pictures, awards, etc. in the toilet have the biggest effect on this commercial's message.

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