Teenage Pregnancy, courtesy of ABC Family

In class we discussed the advertisement of birth control. The discussion centered around the fact that these advertisements tend to avoid the fact that birth control is actually for preventing people from becoming pregnant. I thought that was very interesting and in fact, birth control is not really discussed that much at all in the media. if the topic isn't avoided at all, when it is discussed (outside of advertisements) birth control is talked about for it's side effects (ie clear skin, etc.).

Recently, there are shows popping up on every network that revolve around the controversial pregnant teenager. ABC Family's "Secret Life of the American Teenager," MTV's "16 and Pregnant" and it's sequel "Teen Mom" all depict the lives (fictional and non-fictional) or teen girl's who have unexpectedly become pregnant. As these shows should be/have the potential to be very educational to young girls thinking about becoming sexually active, producers have actually skipped over one very important issue: the pill. These shows completely skirt the issue with contraceptives only being mentioned a few times in it's first season--not at all in the MTV shows. The issue is very horrific to some, like Stanford Professor Nancy Brown who "gets frustrated when she watches movies pass up perfectly good opportunities to add a line or two about contraceptives of STD's." As an example she provides the following: "when Juno's dad, after he learns that is daughter is pregnant, tells her, 'I thought you were the kind of girl who knew when to say when.'" She suggests instead, "what would be a lot better is 'I wish i had talked to you about birth control when you were 12.'"

These shows skirt the issues because networks, like advertisers, know the political/religious controversies such conversations could stir up--so instead of discussing it at all, the pill is avoided all together.

Ads

This week's topic kind of bothered me as the topic dealt with some sense of racism in advertisements. I remembered the soap advertisements in which blacks and whites are represented as dirty and clean. It really bothered me but I understand it was the advertisement companies' own strategy to attract consumers since at that time most of consumers were composed of middle and upper white classes. One specific advertisement that I remember is that a white nanny cleans of a black baby with a soap and the baby turns into white. This dramatically shows the racism at that time and even overtly presented in the advertisements. However, white consumers would be interested and attracted and eventually buy the goods. So I found out the advertisements actually reflect the social or cultural problems but sometimes in wrong ways. In one of the Korean advertisements which shows not racism but some sense of stereotypes, insurance companies try to appeal people by showing insurance would bring happiness and safety to home. It is actually true that having insurace is better than not having it and it would be safe to have it. However, the ads only reflects only good things so the side effect of insurances in Korean society is never revealed. Vicious people try to take advantage of insurances; they harm themselves or others on the purpose of getting paid by insurance companies. This is actually a serious social problem in Korea. Thus, people should not all believe what ads reflect; they should be aware of the hidden things in the advertisements.

Yaz is GREAT!!!

At the end of class on Wednesday we talked about birth control. In particular there was that commercial for Yaz in which a group of girls are at a club and talking about the benefits and risks of birth control. This commercial is ridiculous, because women don't do that in real life. Here's a funny video that parodies the real commercial, as well as the real thing.





I think the parody does a great job at pointing out the flaws in the commercial. For example, they make fun of the fact that one of the girls just happens to be a gynecologist who knows everything about Yaz. It's highly unlikely that that would happen in the real world, and the parody takes advantage of that. I think this commercial does a good job of making fun of advertisements for drugs in general. Drug ads these days often feature people in everyday situations who know much more about the drug than anyone in that situation in the real world would ever know. The drug company wants us to feel as though your everyday neighborhood gynecologist knows everything about Yaz and feels fine discussing the drug at a club, when this is highly unlikely in reality. It's amazing what the lengths to which the drug companies will go to get us to buy their product.

I'm in a Jersey (?!) State Of Mine

On Thursday, April 29th, 2010 The New York Times published an article in the Business Section called Going to New Jersey to Find America.

What I loved about reading this article was, it was on the day I began to put the finishing touches on my final paper where my group and I explored male stereotypes, that ultimately lead to the creation of a television show based in New Jersey.

I think that this article, at least for me, really drives home the point that this class has set fourth from the begging. As people who want to be involved in any business that involves media, advertising, marketing, and public relations- in order to deliver the message, we must be six steps a head of the curve in order to keep up with popular media trends.

Looking at television channels and networks such as MTV, VH1, Bravo, and HBO who have stayed smart to the trend that audiences are craving a look into the life of "real people". According to the article, "the skew that these shows are able to reach, for audience, is truly phenomenal. Among women ages 18 to 49, the appeal of the New Jersey “Housewives” is 50 to 60 percent above the average for all cable shows, said Henry Schafer, executive vice president at Marketing Evaluations, the company that compiles the “Q scores” for likeability of TV series and celebrities."

To me, if you want to be a producer, you must understand the importance of advertising for your product.

I Now Pronounce You Wife and Mop

This week we discussed the underlying messages in soap commercials. Although a lot of the messages were generally about racism, some, like most of the present ones, are more centered on sexism. Swiffer has recently launched a campaign that involves the personification of mops and brooms. In these commercials, these housewives are dumping these brooms and mops for a more efficient Swiffer. And afterwards, these mops and brooms come back looking for them, trying to win them back with flowers and bands playing Player’s “Baby Come Back.” This action of trying to romance the housewives suggest that these cleaning tools, if they could have a sex, are male, which indirectly suggests that women need these tools, males, to get the cleaning done. Although we generally think cleaning is a women’s task, these commercials continue to enforce how women are weak and will always need the help of men to get the work done.

Light Skin and Soap

In class last week we discussed the introduction of soap into society and its ability to bring forth many racist ideas and concepts. For example, when soap was first introduced it was often advertised as a product to not only simply cleanse the skin, but also "cleanse" the skin of people with darker complexions to turn them lighter. Obviously this concept is impossible as well as very racist. Many images in advertisements displayed a caucasian person using soap to "scrub off" the dark complexion of a black person. Obviously this is an impossible endeavor and almost unbelievable to even think of. The use of soap as a "cleansing" product in more ways than one during that time led me to contemplate the issues of skin color that still run rampant in society today. Unfortunately, many celebrities and people even today attempt to lighten their skin or choose to become lighter rather than darker if they have a choice through surgery. It is doubtful that these people have their ideas from those soap advertisements from many years ago, however, for some reason even in today's more open minded era there is still the concept of white superiority in people's minds. Celebrites such as Rihanna, Michael Jackson, and Nicole Richie have all created skepticism around their significantly lighter skin colors.

For example:

Nicole's skin is obviously lighter. Whether this is due to makeup or treatment it is uncertain, however, since her body appears significantly lighter in color it is doubtful that she used makeup.

Michael Jackson's lighten skin was perhaps partly due to disease, however, people also agree that he may have lightened his skin cosmetically as well.

All of these dark complexioned celebrities may have purposefully lightened their skin tones which shows an emphasis on the importance of skin color and the idea of light superiority. It is sad that even today people with darker complexions still feel the need to lighten their skin. Hopefully some day people will truly be able to be happy with their color, size, shape, etc. and love themselves for who they are.

They say it's a magic; but it is not a lie

On Wednesday class, we talked about the characterisitcs of drug commercials. Those commercials usually describe their products as "panacea", telling people that all the bad symptoms would be gone with their products.
This reminds me of a commercial, which I see whenever I watch online CNN news.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvkl15eGE1I&feature=related

This is a commercial of Vicks-Nyquil. It's a medicine for a cold. The ad shows many people who seems to have a hard time while sleeping, because of a cold. And the ad says Nyquil is needed for 'better looking tomorrow'. The ad says that it will be good for using 'the nightime, sniffing, sneezing, coughing, aching, fever,' seeming like it is a panacea.
Like this ad, commercials for drug products often depict their products as a magic, saying that whatever your conditions are, the product will make the conditions better.
The interesting thing about Nyquill commercial is that there are a lot of versions of this commercials, yet the ads never show us how people look like tomorrow. They promise 'for better looking tomorrow,' but they are not directly showing how people are better looking tomorrow. If they are showing people who are completely recovered people, they are telling lies ( we all know that it is hard to be recoverd in a day!), but....what a smart ad!