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!

Drugs are not for everyone, but the ads are!

The myth of scientific truth is something that our society loves to ignore. As Jon pointed out, we love to trust the pharmaceutical ads because we lack the expertise to say if it is false or not. The advertising companies are allowed to advertise in America and nowhere else in the world. That alone says a lot. The advertising companies are taking advantage of our trust in doctors in order to sell their product. Rather than treating medication as a cure for someone’s serious illness, they are creating it into a product that is fashionable to buy. People can now request the same drugs, rather than being subscribed. This commoditization of medical drugs has resulted in people thinking they have the symptoms advertised and taking medications for ailments they do not actual have. Half of the commercials seen on TV eventually have to remake a commercial to explain all the new-found side-effects on people, but by that time the drug has already been mass-consumed.

The way these advertisements work is by showing people with these whatever ailment and placing them in a situation where they cannot be social, go on with their daily lives, or go out at night, but once the person takes the drug being promoted they are then able to go out and have fun with the rest of the world. Once one part of the body is fixed, you can be a better person all around that is able to go out into the world and be loved. The drugs sell a lifestyle. All of these advertisements blur the line between scientist and artist. Science is being created into something sellable and loveable, rather than serious, healthy, and reliable. This is not the direction our medical profession needs to take. Attempts to get these types of ads off the air have been thwarted by our fabulous capitalistic ways because the pharmaceutical companies have put so much money in these ads that they will do anything to stop the ban. People need to become more educated about what they are putting into their bodies and ad companies need to stop taking advantage of people’s trust in doctors, because one day that trust will be ruined.

Eugenics good or bad? (my last post!)

This week the part in our reading about genetics interested me alot.
When we were talking about eugenics in the class, I remembered about mixed dogs, which are popular in Japan. Recently, designer dogs, the mixed dogs which are artificially produced by crossbreeding are having a boomlet in my country. There are a number of new kinds of dogs which are produced by crossing different kinds of purebred dogs, and they attract people who want a unique dog different from others'. Considering only poodles, there are tons of these crossbred dogs such as Cockapoo (cocker spaniel/poodle), Poo-Shi (Shiba inu/ poodle), etc
.

Poodles are considered to be beneficial to crossbreed because they are very intelligent and have a non-shedding, hypoallergenic coat, which people who are allergic to dog fur are often not allergic to. But the production of these designer dogs is controversial. Opponents argue that many of the breeds are not beneficial; the breeders of designer dogs just focus on producing mixed dogs which have unique looks. (To my surprise, when I am making this post, some strange guy talked to me; he wanted to take a picture of this image of poo-shi dog above on the right because it's cute! Appearance of a mixed dog can attract people this much lol.) In addition, sadly, many dogs' lives for crossbreeding in puppy mills are wasted because of failure in breeding.

I felt that crossbreeding is like a game now. It seems like the breeders play with the dogs' genes thinking "what if I mix this gene with that gene?" It might do improve species of dogs but it seems that dogs are used to appease human desire to have better dogs ......

Today we are close to the state that we can have designer children. On March 2nd of 2009, a Los Angeles fertility clinic, which offered a month before "to let parents choose their kinds' hair and eyes" shut the program down because of the public outrage (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/designerdebate/）. A transhumanist, James Hughes, says, "designing children is in the same category as abortion. If you think women have the right to control their own bodies, then they should be able to make this choice." He adds, "There should be no law restricting the kind of kids people have, unless there’s gross evidence that they’re going to harm that kid, or harm society."
As technology has developed along with human desires, the meanings of what used to be human nature has been changing. Birth controls enable women not to have a child -not to produce life. Plastic surgeries allow human bodies to be segmented and changed. People do not necessarily have a sex to have a child because Artificial Insemination is available. And now we can pick up only superior genes that the parents want and can have a perfect child?
They all have develop human lives. Sterile women can have a child with the AI. But with humans desire such as choosing traits to have a pretty or smart one, some scientific technologies might be going too far. What is the meaning of life, sex, body...? where is diversity? With the designers baby technology in the future, we all (or all "rich" people who can afford to enjoy the benefits of the tech.) will be able to have super kids.