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I certainly have no issues with smoking, or, wait, maybe I do. After all, lung cancer, via smoking, killed both my mother and her younger brother; neither lived to Senior Citizenry.
So, although those anti-smoking ads with people displaying their mutilations and deformities as a result of over-indulging in this vice are unsettling, they are nothing compared to the ad being used now. In fact, when it comes on, and I know it is going to be that, I instantly change the channel.
It seems to be set in an airport or mall, with groups of people passing to and fro. A mother and child suddenly come into the picture. She is holding his hand, and says something to the child. Suddenly, their hands are separated. The child turns, is first confused, then breaks out into the most heart rending sobs you can imagine. Then comes the voice-over, announcing how smoking creates even more traumatic losses than this comes on.
The announcer is right, but I think this dramatization falls under the rubric of what I call Theater Of Cruelty. First, if you watch the ad carefully, it seems the mother almost lets go of the child's hand, intentionally, as though she were abandoning him. The first time I saw this, before I knew what it was, that is what I thought was going on, and that it was going to be dealing with the issue of missing or abandoned children. When I heard the smoking message, I got the point, but, even when you know what it is, there is something unsettling about seeing child abandonment depicted.
If anything should be pulled off the air, I think this ad should. Imagine if you are that child's age, or slightly older, and you see this. The trauma of potential abandonment is embedded into innocent skulls, setting up a wave of fear and anxiety. Who needs it??????????
The advertisers clearly want to target the hazards of smoking, and for that I applaud them. But they have chewed off too much by depicting something that seems to echo other social service issues that should be dealt with more directly, and more humanely.
When I used to see the commercial, I wanted to instantly scoop up the kid, carry him off to the Security Office, have them scout the store for the mother, and then give that woman a piece of my mind. Or, if having left the store, track her down, and arrest her for child endangerment.
This ad is hazardous in two ways. You won't want to smoke. But if you are a very young child, you will not want to go anywhere, and you will not trust adults!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What are these marketeers thinking?????????????????????
2 comments:
The worst part about this ad is that kid is not acting. That's his real mother and when she let go of his hand she was hidden behind a curtain. This boy actually thought he was lost. If that's not child cruelty, I don't know what is. Just like Margaret O'Brien's mother telling her that her dog died, to get her to cry at the end of Meet Me in St. Louis!
You know, I thought that kid was too young to be that good an actor. Where was the Child Welfare agencies? Or the legal protection supposedly accorded to child actors? That mother should be looked into, as well.
As for Margaret 0'Brien, that scene is penultimate for me, but I am surprised she was able to do it. Had I been told a dog, or someone close to me died, an acting scene would be furthest from my mind.
On the adult front do you know the "Chorus Line" story? When the Original Cast opened in LA, on opening night, Michael bennett went up to Sammy Williams, and said to him, "I want to see real tears out there tonight. Just think about how much I hate you!"
Good thing this was not said to me! Because I would have responded, "You want real tears; I'll give you real tears! I could certainly have upstaged Margaret O'Brien, I have upstaged children in my time, and have no regrets about doing it!
But back to that ad! Another reason it upsets me, I realize, is the kid looks like Jamie Bulger, who was captured and murderd when his mother happened to turn her back. He was two, his killers 10!
Unconscionable!!!!!!!!!
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