Gotta love those funny TV commercials! How about the ad where one guy hits another in the head with a cell phone, twice, or where a woman bounces a cue ball off the forehead of an obnoxious man? Then there’s the guy who breaks down a wall to be allowed to answer a quiz question. We’re supposed to laugh, of course. If we do, though, what we’re telling our kids is that violence is both an acceptable response to minor irritants and funny. It’s time to change this way of thinking. We start not by laughing at the aggressive scene but by using the ads as a chance to talk to our kids about violence against our fellow humans. Our discussion will likely bring out stories of similar antagonism on the playground or among their friends and give us a chance to offer guidance in how to handle such situations.
Tag Archive for commercials
“Funny” TV Ads
Ad that to My Bowl of Super Logic
I USED TO pride myself on my logic. No more. Not since yesterday.
You see, I’m one of those people who isn’t fond of football, even the Super Bowl, not even the half-time show. But I like to watch the commercials–mainly to see how, if I had $5 million, I could fill 30 seconds. What I did this year was record the game for later viewing (and for skipping through to catch the ads).
Before that, though, I recorded Super Bowl’s Greatest Commercials 2016. That’s what I watched yesterday. Sounds logical so far, right? I thought it was. Until I realized something: I was zipping through the program’s commercials to watch what? Commercials!
Sigh……
4 Hours of News in 1 Hour
TV news is convenient but very frustrating. We record four hour-long news programs in the morning so we can catch up on world, national, and local happenings over our morning cup of coffee while zipping past commercials. What we get is newscasters telling us what they’ll tell us about–after the commercials–or non-news that says there’s nothing happening, say, with a strike or hearing, but they promise to keep us posted about what isn’t happening. They give “updates” on stories they’ve already told us, but they have nothing new to add. Then there’s the weather, repeated by the weather person six or more times, in addition to snippets from the news desk.
Bless the person who invented fast-forward! Even so, when I timed it, all we get is a single hour of news.
By the way, this coming Sunday I won’t have anything to blog about. But don’t worry…I’ll keep you updated on that non-blog.
2012 Funniest Commercials
“Hit, smash…buy!” I ran across a program like the funniest Super Bowl ads, called “Funniest Commercials of the Year,” as voted on by the public. I thought I’d take a peek. There were 40 ads. 19 involved destruction, crashing, hurting or being hurt, and other violent behavior. Three more showed mean tricks being played on people. Two others depicted people going overboard–going nuts, basically. (We won’t count the bathroom humor of two of them.) That’s more than half. Obviously, most people–or at least those who vote on these things–think that violence is not only acceptable but funny. They laugh at it around their kids, thus passing the attitude onto the next generation.
Odd thing is, I bet these are the same people who are appalled by murders, riots, muggings, and such, and they may even lecture their kids about fighting and bullying, wondering where on Earth they would have learned such actions.
Okay. Enough on this subject. I’ll climb off my soapbox.
Super Bowl Ads
If I don’t watch The Game I miss the ads. Actually, I tune into the yearly show “Super Bowl’s Greatest Commercials,” aired a week before the game, to see what I missed. The ads are funny, sexy, thought-provoking, timely, expensive, and disturbingly violent.
It’s the attitude that “violence sells” that bothers me. So many ads feature people getting hurt or hurting someone else on purpose–designed to make us laugh. I don’t happen to think that’s funny.
This year’s Greatest Top 10 Ads of All Time were encouraging, though. Yes, there were the Three Stooges type humor in some. However, here were the top four: #4 Bridgestone tires (saving a whale), #3 Victoria’s Secret (suggestive but not overboard–for them), #2 Coke (Mean Joe Green–kid teaching adult a lesson in humility and generosity), and #1 Budweiser (horse/dog friendship and cooperation leads to success).
I have no idea what Sunday will bring between bouts of grown men fighting over a bit of pigskin. As for me, I’ll spend the day looking for Bridgestone tire sales, slyly placing the Victoria’ Secret weekly ad near my husband’s chair, drinking a bunch of Cokes, then topping it off with a Bud or two. The game? Oh, yeah, that. Maybe I’ll catch the half-time show.
