http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuU3TSORZ20
This is an commercial for condoms. Please view the video and consider the following points:
1. Why is the father (I'm assuming) shown instead of the mother?
2. Who do you think the commercial is intended to influence?
3. Do you think the commercial is effective?
4. How does this commercial relate to our course theme of private vs public?
I think that this video is aimed for a younger adult audience. Even when I was watching the video, I could only think about how annoying that child was being. I think that this is the point and effective in proving a point.
ReplyDeleteThe father is shown because if a mother was shown I think that the portrayal of the message would not be taken as lightly. That a mother is supposed to love their children.
I definitely agree that this is aimed at a younger adult audience. The father looks as though he is in his early twenties, a time seen as when you party and enjoy life...not raise a child. I also agree that showing the father is more effective. Not that a father would love a child any less than a mother but, a father is generally seen as more stand off-ish with a child. The father is also shown to enforce the gender role that males are responsible for safe sex. A mother would be less effective. They are usally considered to have more control over their children as well as "love their children" as Austin said before.
DeleteI think the father is shown instead of the mother due to the cultural stereotype that the male in the relationship is responsible for safe sex. In this case, the commercial seems to be implying that it was the male's fault that this "demon child" was born. The commercial is clearly trying to appeal to young adults by using appeals of emotion and some scare tactics to try to convince young adults to not have children.
ReplyDeleteThey did do a great job of explaining the demon child then incorporating emotions involved. I would say that would be enough for any young adult to not have children. However; does this really mean they all shouldn't? I don't think so, but what I do agree with is you should always use one if you are not ready.
DeleteIn this clip, the father is dealing with his difficult son in the supermarket, and it is implied that is son wasn't planned. The father is shown because it is implied that he could have avoided this situation all together by using a condom, operating under the assumption that it is only the man's responsibility. This commercial appears to be targeted at sexually active men, telling them they can avoid this negative situation by using condoms. I believe this condom commercial would not be effective, simply because people know what kids are like, and don't need a commercial to tell them. I guess the only way this commercial could relate to the theme of private vs public would be if you looked at how the guy's private "mistake" effected the public space of the supermarket.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your statement on people not necessarily needing to be told what kids are like, but I don't believe people would dismiss the commercial simply because its "common sense" what having a child entails. Unfortunately, common sense is not so common, therefore it is smart on the advertisers part to use such strong appeal to show what could become of a stupid mistake, such as not using a condom.
DeleteI think its obvious that this commercial is aimed to a younger sexually active audience probably in their twenties. In the clip the "father" has to deal with his child that is having a temper tantrum. It is also apparent that the father is rather embarrassed and the other people in the store are very annoyed with the man's son. George definitely hit a good point when he said that by saying use a condom the commercial is inferring that it is the man's responsibility to do so. It is also stating that this situation could have been avoided had the decided to use protection. As a young adult I think the commercial is decently effective mainly as a scare tactic. It makes us think of one of the worst possible situation that comes with having a child. This relates to our course theme because the man's private choice of whether to use a condom or not has invaded peoples' public lives.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Dennis and George that it is the male’s responsibility for safe sex and since this man did not act responsibly, he has to deal with a child that he doesn’t look or act like he is ready for. Like the others said above it is definitely a scare tactic used to blatantly state to young adults that this will happen if you are not safe. In relation to our course theme, I think the commercial is trying to say that private choices can later be seen or judged by public, like seen in this commercial. The couple decided not to have safe sex, so now they have a child, who is making a huge seen for all the public to see. A less drastic example could be a baby bump seen on a younger looking woman.
ReplyDeleteI think the video clip is aiming to alert young people to care about contraception. The boy in the clip make his father hedache. From the clip, I guess that the man does not like the boy very much. The behavior of the boy makes him embarassed while the he makes the boy unhappy as well. Neither of them are happy. The reason is most likely to be caless of contraception. So in this way, we can say that the advertisment is very persuasive for young people who are sexual active. Such case can remind them to have safe sex in order to avoid the trouble kids. Otherwise, neither the kid and you will not be happy.
ReplyDeleteIt relates to our theme very well, since sex is regarded as a private affair generally. But this advertisment is shown on the website which is open to everyone. It is in public. So public and private is combined in this video.
I agree with what my other classmates had said so far. That the father was shown because of the sterotype that it is a man's job to have a condom. But I think that when comming to this issue, both parties are equally responsible. Another reason why the father is shown is because a condom is used on a man, even if a women gave a man a condom, if he choose not to use it it still won't work. This commercial is aimed at a younger male audience because most older man would have already have a family by then and, unlike the father shown in the commercial, would take good care of his child. In terms of scare tatic and an element of comedy is commercial really grabs the audience's attention. It does not tell the audience that it is a condom commercial until the end. Making the audience focus on the situation more and then relate the situation stronger to the condom.
ReplyDeleteThis commercial relates to our course theme primarily because condom relates to sex. And when it comes to sex it is almost always a private matter. And the context of the commercial (the supermarket) is in a public place. And the messing of the child is disturbing other people's privacy. Therefore, public is invading private.
I agree with Peiyu’s viewpoint that this commercial is aiming to alert people especially for the young man to take care of the contraception. Why this commercial uses a young man instead of the women because I think this clip wants to tell us prepare for a good contraception is man’s responsibility. If you don’t care about contraception when you have sex, look at the commercial, annoying child is your “gift” due to your irresponsibility in having sex.
ReplyDeleteI think this commercial could relate to out theme because the man’s wrong behavior in his privacy invades the public. The man’s unawareness in his privacy is invading the public in fact
I agree with Jiachu, that this commercial wants to show us that contraception is the man's responsibility. We can connect this to the commercial we watched in class last week. There they used the same statement, that it is the man's responsibility. Also both of these commercials showed the consequences of having unsafe sex: the commercial from last week showed the consequence being unprepared for safe sex results in girls' rejection and this commercial shows the consequence that unsafe sex can result in undesired children. Both of these consequences are used to scare the people, especially young people.
ReplyDeleteI think everybody is making great point! In relation to our course theme, we could also look into how the public displays stereotypes of males and females and how theses stereotypes affect our private and public lives. Any ideas?
ReplyDeleteI wonder why there is no communication going on between the father and the son... The outcome would have been different if the father explained the son why he couldn't buy any candies... I am saying this because the boy seems very calm in the beginning, but as the father keeps ignoring him, he turns into such an annoying kid. Would this be an implicit detail of what the commercial is trying to say?
ReplyDeleteTo answer Brittany’s second question, these gender stereotypes change the views of people when they think of the opposite gender. As stated before, usually the male is thought of as the one responsible for condom use. This could stem from the fact that, in most cases (and I am using stereotypes here) the male is usually the one in charge. The male is often the leader and is stereotypically the one who brings home the check at the end of the month. All of these stereotypical reasons could lead to society determining that the male is the one who is responsible for safe sex.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all the comments above so far~ besides revealing the male's responsibility in safe sex and his private choice interrupts the public,to some level, i also notice that this is a short story between two boys-- they don't know how to communicate with each other privately and make things complicated at the end, disturbing the peace of public environment at the same time. After a silent disobeying, the little boy screamed and threw things around.And the father can not help about that at all. This relates to family education and its influences to child's public behaviors. It is not hard to imagine that when the little boy grows up, he would make the same stupid and irrational choice in having sex. Then, a vicious chain reaction starts...
ReplyDeleteThis commercial does a great job at at incorporating a message conveying our course theme. They are using gender roles to say that it is the mans job at being responsible for condoms. The commercial is used to influence young adults who wouldn't want to and be able to deal with a situation like a kid throwing a temper tantrum. The use emotions to get this message across. The overall great message that relates to our course theme is how the turn a public matter into a private. For one you can assume the mother is not involved anymore because she isn't around and when commercials stress condoms its because of random hookups. That's not always the case but in this case I am assuming this because the guy is very calm and the kid is not. If I were to guess a baby who came from someone he would most likely marry wpu;d be a lot more relaxed and toned down. How they make this public is they have something that resulted because of a private matter freak out and cause a disturbance. I found this brilliant because they showed how a private matter can become public easily.
ReplyDeleteAs most of our classmates have mentioned, this short commercial is targeted for young men. The reason why the mother didn’t show up probably lies in the fact that men are supposed to shoulder their responsibility and it is their gender role to use condoms. This commercial tries to get people’s attention by involving us in a situation where a father cannot stop his kid crying in a supermarket. I believe that most of us may have similar experience before. We can actually understand how the father is embarrassed and how others are disturbed. This commercial induces people to think that the kid is really trouble but can be stopped if they use the condoms. The strategy works effectively since the boy really annoys me and I would suggest the father use the condoms next time.
ReplyDeleteThis short commercial relates to our course theme in two aspects. First it advocates safe sex. Although today is more open than fifty years ago, sex is still a private thing. Besides, this commercial shows us how the private invades the public. Due to the lack of private communication, the little kid causes a big disturbance.
I agree with the class in saying that the commercial illistrates that it should be the males responsibility to have the condom. The mother figure isn't shown in this commercial primarily for that reaason. The creaters of the commercial didn't want the women to look in any way responsible for the kid because it "isn't her responsibility" that she got pregnant. The commercial get our attention because for the most part this is a relatable situation. There's always that one kid in the store screaming and in this situation it made the young father feel uncomfortable because he probably wasn't expecting to have a kid at all anytime soon.
ReplyDeleteThis is relatable to our course them because like others have said, sex is a private matter. When the audience sees the commercial it becomes a public matter that a condom wasn't used and therefore invading the public life of the audience and the people in the store.
As most of my classmates have said, the commercial uses the father because it is considered to be his responsibility to have a condom. There is a social stereotype that a woman should not be held accountable for providing a condom, instead it is up to the man to have one in order to be sexually courteous and smart. This creates the belief that the woman in a sexual relationship is not to blame if she gets pregnant. The commercial is definitely directed towards men and uses pathos to get its message of "use a condom," aka "think about what the outcome could be," across. I personally believe the commercial was effective because it reminded me how regretful I would be if I made a mistake and that said mistake was a menace to the public. With that segway, I feel that this is relatable to our course theme because of the decisions people make in private, such as using a condom, can be quite visible in public. By the man choosing not to use one, the resulting monster child terrorizes people in the public realm. A private choice can be presented to the public and has the potential to invade other people's privacy.
ReplyDeleteThe producers of this commercial have the objective in mind to persuade those that witness this event, especially young unmarried couples, to have protection during affairs. The beginning starts off in a very innocent manner in which one would not expect to be watching a commercial geared to wearing protection, but then as the incident escalates the witness is engrossed into this temper-tantrum. As the piercing screams of the child ring through the speakers the audience tries to steer away, but is yet captivated by the commotion. The audience even starts to feel embarrassed for the child and father. This ploy leaves a lasting feeling of guilt, sympathy, and a resulting feeling of public humiliation long after the commercial is over. The father is the only parent there though. Traditionally it is the mother that does such shopping in a relationship, so that must mean that there is a mother no longer in a relationship. The couple must have only been together for, well, the inception of pregnancy. A mother is usually the one that is able to control children in public places. From what I have experienced I have seen very rare cases of unruly children with their mothers, but a much greater amount of rogue children with fathers. I do not know why that is, but the father is shown here for what I feel to be the public conception that children do not listen to their fathers nearly as often. What is for certain though is that the more berserk the kid could have been in the commercial, the more effective the point is made.
ReplyDeleteThe conception of a child is a private matter, the use of protection is a private matter, but in this commercial there is an invasion of the public. The unruly behavior displayed certainly should have been taken out of the public by a father with a back-bone and the kid should have been disciplined. But the father is young and did not expect a child. He is unprepared, and the child displays that very well. The public should have to deal with incidents as little as possible, and as the commercial implies a piece of protection could have avoided it. I know some kids are unruly though. It is all about the parenting process. This commercial though gives an impression that unruly behavior is the result of a tragic relationship.