(no subject)

[ivyfic]

Today, the TV at the dentist's office was tuned to CNN. And it played the most MANIPULATIVE AD I'VE EVER SEEN.

It shows a small boy, maybe two and a half, in a crowded concourse, with adults zipping past. His mom is there at the start, but then vanishes into the crowd. And then you watch, in silence, for a full sixty seconds, as the boy first looks around, and then slowly starts to cry. It was AGONIZING. I think because you can see that he is fighting it, but is just overwhelmed by the distress. I'm not sure there's even an adult equivalent to that feeling of being lost when you're small. And also, I knew that, though this was only a commercial, children that small don't act. That pain was real for that kid.

At the end of it, it says--this is how sad your child is when you're gone for a minute. Imagine if you were gone for a lifetime. QUIT SMOKING.

So now I am sitting in my dentist's office, crying. And the dentist had just left for a minute--he was about to come back in and check my bite. And I'm thinking, shit, he's going to think I'm in pain or something has gone wrong with my teeth when it's just this STUPID COMMERCIAL.

Can I just say--though I don't approve of smoking and I do agree with their being societal pressure against smoking, I HATE the no smoking ads. They always make me feel AWFUL. It's clearly trying to shock smokers out of denial about the consequences of smoking, but I've never smoked in my life. I feel like they're kind of carpet bombing with these horrible emotions when a lot of people watching don't even smoke. It's like an enormous, country-wide guilt trip. And it's in the middle of the Colbert Report and, apparently, my dentist's office, and I DO NOT WANT.

If you would also like to feel like a tear gas canister has been set off in your vicinity, here is the ad. It says something that when I searched for "lost child anti smoking ad," the first result that came up was "controversial scared boy ad."

Comments

[embroiderama]

Ugh, I haven't seen that one but it sounds awful. I keep being bombarded by this one anti-smoking ad when I keep going to see Avengers--twice per showing, I think--and that one's nowhere near as brutally manipulative as the one you're talking about. D:

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I think I may finally understand what's at stake in trigger warning debates. Cause if that ad could've been behind an lj-cut with warnings for disturbing content? I'd have been a much happier camper.

[mithras03.livejournal.com]

That's not a new ad - and it actually caused quite the controversy when it was first aired, for precisely the reason you mention. That kind of distress in a child cannot be acted.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

While I am sure most childhoods involve a moment like that (man, I remember getting lost at the Museum of Science--the guard who took me to the security desk and paged my parents offered me ice cream AND I SAID NO because I was too upset. I SAID NO TO FREE ICE CREAM), the urge to go up to this kid and offer to help him find his mom was SO STRONG. God, it's cruel to do that to a small child.

[sasha-b.livejournal.com]

OMG THAT WAS AWFUL.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I did warn you.

I started to rewatch it when I was looking for a link, and after about ten seconds was like I CANNOT GO THROUGH THAT AGAIN.

I find it interesting that the descriptions of it are mostly that the boy is scared or sad, whereas scared didn't even occur to me as a descriptor. I just thought it looked like pain, or abandonment, or grief. "Scared" seems entirely an insufficient word for that.

[sasha-b.livejournal.com]

I don't see scared either, I see abandoned and terrified. UGH whomever did this commercial...it was certainly effective. I just don't want to think of some poor tiny kid being that hurt to cry on camera like that. Awful.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

But it's all okay because they didn't intend to traumatize the kid. Just you.

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

Our elevator has ads (EEEE) and one of them was a little kid bouncing a ball against a garage door that has an outline of a person on it. The end of the ad is like, DON'T DENY YOUR CHILD A FATHER. GET CHECKED FOR PROSTATE CANCER.

Jeeeeesus.