Chapter 13: 'Cause it's the law!

While watching the group presentations last week, I saw that one movie that depicted the protesters here at BYU and was kind of in schock at the free speech they had hindered. They were merely expressing their dislike for the speaker coming for graduation, and yet, they were told to be in a "free speech" zone. If I were the admin, which I'm sadly not, I would tell them they can protest where they feel, as long as they are non-violent.

One time at high school, my friend Adam wore a shirt that said, "I'm a gangsta of love." And it had a heart on it. The admin told him to cover up the "gangsta" part. So he duct taped over that part, even though everyone who knows the old cliche phrase knows exactly what was under it. Free speech was ridiculously hindered here. I honestly wouldn't care if he wore the shirt, it makes no difference to how the school day goes. However, our admin was very adiment about there being no "gang-affiliated" clothing worn throughout the day.

Chapter 12: PR

Public relations practices are somewhat ethical. Keeping a public image is a good thing and basically the reason PR exists. However, the extent to which they do this can be a little shady. If a PR consultant tells a celebrity like Jessica Simpson that she needs to be seen kissing a baby wearing a Cowboys jersey to show her love for her boyfriend's job, that's a little extreme. But for a PR consultant to tell her she needs to stop going to games so people stop hating her for ruining games, that's not so extreme. Because every time she's at a game, you see the camera clip to her at some point. People lose faith in the Cowboys at that point.

There aren't as many or as extreme cases of press agentry as was in the time of P.T. Barnum, but cases still exists. Especially in diet pills. There are so many little schemes saying if you take these pills, you'll lose 20 pounds. But here's the kicker, they include a little diet plan with the pills. They say for one day, for breakfast, you should have a piece of toast, lunch should be a ham sandwich, a snack in between, and dinner should be a salad. OF COURSE YOU'LL LOSE WEIGHT DOING THAT! Ridiculous!

Another example is the Bowflex. When guys see other guys RIPPED, they think this isn't hard. However, what they don't say is these other men diet and work ridiculously hard at the same time.

Chapter 11: Advertising (Part 2)

Advertising's effectiveness is debatable, but I still think that they are effective. Case in point, Quizno's. Restaurant's generally excell in advertisements because they emphasize the melting cheese, toasted bread, and hot and scrumptious meat. Quizno's is exceptionally good at this because they show the food as it rolls out of the oven.

Another great example is Nike. Sure, most of the time their ads are pretty unrelated, but the way they approach what they're advertising is phenomenal. Recently, the advertisement with LeBron James is quite impressive and entertaining as he and others throw dust everywhere in monochrome.


However, sometimes, I have noticed very ineffective ads. Old Spice's ads where all the girls are turned on by this old guy is just disgusting. Who would like that ad? Are they trying to say Old Spice can turn girls on no matter what? Gross....

Chapter 11: Advertising (Part 1)

So as for my ads I found, I want to start with the ones I think were ineffective. First, here's this one from Levi. All they really do to advertise their new line of jeans is state what it takes to make an average pair. I mean yes, it is kind of interesting to know, but would that actually prompt me to buy these jeans? No.

Now, just to approach something I saw that was pretty funny, this next one is from Burger King, and I think it's pretty effective. It shows a woman's mouth with bandages on both corners implying that she cut her mouth wider just to eat the burger. I like this cause it approaches women, who are stereotyped to only eating salads, as people who can also have monstrous hamburgers.

This next one is from a group who I think have always either tried too hard to get an ad across or completely failed altogether. This is a great example. This Axe ad says that because Obama wears Axe, Hillary Clinton now supports Obama. WOW. How bad of an ad! They aren't really hitting a target audience, they aren't really getting a valid message across that could make someone buy their product, it's just not a good ad overall.

Finally, this ad by HP is pretty good. They address the personalization offered by HP by relating it to clothes that you wear every day. Plus, it shows a really cool design on the laptop itself. It hits the target audience and its concerns, they relate it to the audience, and prompt me personally to buy an HP laptop.

Chapter 9: TV

So, over the past week of television viewing, I've noticed quite a few things. The first being that I'm a sports fanatic. Every day after lunch, I come home and watch OTL on ESPN. EVERY DAY. Why? Because they keep me up to date on sports news like how Plaxico Burress is probably never going to play football again or what the NFL playoffs are going to look like. So after a good nap that I'm usually in desperate need of, I check what's on TBS and normally, Everybody Loves Raymond or The King of Queens is on. I love these two sitcoms. I normally have work after this so the only night I actually watch ANYTHING on primetime is Thursday night. And I love my Thursday nights! The Office and 30 Rock are always on Thursday nights in our apartment. We even have a few friends over most Thursday nights and order pizza. Sunday nights usually have good movies on TBS or TNT or even CBS so sometimes I'll catch a movie Sunday night.

From this account, I've learned that the larger scale of television is for entertainment. Television is normally an escape for people. That's why news on the big stations like ABC and CBS comprise maybe 3 hours of each day. Of course there is CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News, but they're viewing audience is more specialized than with most stations that try to hit a larger scope. So this is the fulfillment of need, to entertain and make us laugh. Without humorous programming, TV would be pretty bleak and unentertaining.

I think that as of late, television stations have started to imply less stress on appealing to the LCD. Television stations are more interested in getting ratings so they will intentionally push to envelope. Take a look at South Park, one of the most offensive shows on TV. However, it still gets high ratings each week. They know that if they try hard enough to get a laugh out of each and every member of their audience, they will offend someone, but they'll get numbers for it. Take a look The Office too. Most people don't think of the office as an offensive program. But there are some jokes and quips that COULD offend some people. Racial jokes, stereotypes, etc., could offend someone. And The Office is one of the highest rated shows on TV right now. Again, they try to make everyone laugh and get great ratings for it.

I agree that television impacts society the most. When a child does something outlandish that makes it onto the news, the first thing that's blamed by the parents or news is television. They say that the kid observed this behavior on television so they absorbed this behavior. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the notion that every bit of offensive behavior kids do is from TV, but I will say that the acknowledgment that this is a possibility shows that television is incredibly influential on our society. People pick up catch phrases from tv, they want to look like someone on tv, they want to use a product that a character on tv does just because that character does. For example, Coke is used in practically every American Idol episode because Simon, Randy, and Paula always have a cup of it right next to them. So yes, television has had the largest impact on our society as far as the media goes.

Chapter 8: Lights, Camera, Action

Ah the beauty of the art we call movies. Many of us go to movies on a regular basis but are often ignorant of some of the content we see. As said in many instances, and this is true especially of movies. Take a look at most of the recent blockbuster hits. The most notable that is overloaded with sexual content is "Zach and Miri Make a Porno." 10 years ago, this kind of a movie wouldn't have even been heard of allowed in theaters. However, our society has become overly accepting of sexual content in theaters. Over time, we allowed more and more to be in theaters and so we become practically ignorant of the plethora of content displayed before our eyes at the theaters.

Violence is pretty similar. In fact, there's more violent content in theaters than sexual content. The huge hit over the summer, "The Dark Knight," was laced with violence in every scene. Granted, it was a superhero movie and practically should have violence, but the infamous "Magic Pencil Trick" and the Joker's sadistic nature further epitomizes the violence that we've grown to accept. Even in "childrens" movies, violence is a little heavier than what it was just 5-10 years ago.

Why is this? Why have these two possibly psychologically harmful actions been displayed in theaters so much more? Producers can get away with it now. They've gradually started to increase the level of each content over time so that we as a society eventually accept more. If they were to blatantly throw a ton more sexual content at us, we wouldn't accept it or allow it. But sense they gradually build to it, we're somewhat ok with it.

That being said, as a movie producer, I would make a drama. One of my favorite kinds of movies are the ones that make you feel like a loathsome piece of garbage and then make you feel better at the end of the movie like "Hotel Rwanda" and "The Pursuit of Happyness." So, I'd try to get some amazing actors and actresses, like George Clooney, Denzel Washington, maybe Merryl Streep, and create a story of inspiration and a desire in the future audience to improve upon themselves.

My idea would be that someone would be well off, they wouldn't have everything, but they'd have enough, and something big happens to them. Perhaps George Clooney gets in a car accident and can never walk again. Unfortunately for him, his spouse, Merryl Streep doesn't know how to cope with this new lifestyle so she divorces him, Clooney's job requires him to be more active, and he starts to lose money and a will to live because of these changes. He becomes an alcoholic, extremely poor, and starts to lose all hope of anything turning around. While at a bar, he meets Denzel Washington who's climbing out of a hole similar to George's. Denzel helps him turn his life around because he's been through a similar experience. George soon finds a job more suited to his new lifestyle, he gets money to keep his house, and he does it all while handicapped. And the title? "In An Instant"