I laughed to both the commercial and the comic. Oh I understand whats going on, its just that the message is told poorly, the comic has no context and the cartoon kid's reactions in the commercial make it seem like a joke.
So the punchline is "as long as the kid managed to get back up again, beating up your kids is ok?" I guess only fathers can be child abusers. Cigarette burns go away because you use running water on their head. Kids who fear the hell out of their dad like to play in a kitchen with hot stoves and slippery floors abound.
The whole commercial is far too easy to misunderstand without broader knowledge of child abuse.
MMaestro said: So the punchline is "as long as the kid managed to get back up again, beating up your kids is ok?" I guess only fathers can be child abusers. Cigarette burns go away because you use running water on their head. Kids who fear the hell out of their dad like to play in a kitchen with hot stoves and slippery floors abound.
The whole commercial is far too easy to misunderstand without broader knowledge of child abuse.
Jesus Christ, you morbidly misunderstood both what I said and what the commercial was trying to get through.
The whole point is that the public tends to bagatelize the problem of child abuse and close their eyes in front of it. The commercial was trying to say that child abuse is real, not just some sort of imaginary, statistical issue. People tend to make light of it, the commercial was supposed to remind the public that the ones who are suffering because of it are real children, not just figures in a statistic or nameless faces in the TV => i.e. cartoon figures. It didn't aspire to affect the perpetrators of the abuse, that's impossible, at least that way, and they know it.
博麗 said: The commercial was trying to say that child abuse is real, not just some sort of imaginary, statistical issue.
So to convey the point that it's real, and not imaginary, they portrayed it as... imaginary?
I understand what they were trying to do, but to me they failed horribly. You're supposed to feel something at the end when you see the real kid at the bottom of the stairs, but by making it so intentionally ridiculous prior to that point, they ended up completely sabotaging themselves. By the end, the audience becomes so completely detached from the events happening that it makes it impossible for them to relate or sympathize in any way, resulting in a final image that has no impact whatsoever.
I understand it didn't work on you how it was supposed to, and I understand why. But I still think the effect on general public is going to be different.
Ralen said: So to convey the point that it's real, and not imaginary, they portrayed it as... imaginary?
I understand what they were trying to do, but to me they failed horribly. You're supposed to feel something at the end when you see the real kid at the bottom of the stairs, but by making it so intentionally ridiculous prior to that point, they ended up completely sabotaging themselves. By the end, the audience becomes so completely detached from the events happening that it makes it impossible for them to relate or sympathize in any way, resulting in a final image that has no impact whatsoever.
that, guy, is because you are mentally sick... go to the psichiatrist and heal that sadist mind of you...
博麗 said: The commercial was trying to say that child abuse is real, not just some sort of imaginary, statistical issue. People tend to make light of it, the commercial was supposed to remind the public that the ones who are suffering because of it are real children, not just figures in a statistic or nameless faces in the TV => i.e. cartoon figures. It didn't aspire to affect the perpetrators of the abuse, that's impossible, at least that way, and they know it.
Protip : Don't use cartoons if you can't deliver your message across clearly in the first place. It belittles your argument.
Child abuse IS a joke because people over-inflate the issue. Spanking? Child abuse. Letting your children go to the mall without parental supervision? Child abuse. Kid manages to sneak out of the house without the parents noticing? Child abuse. Getting into a verbal argument and throwing pizza at them? Child abuse. (Yes I looked that last one up)
Don't ask why, but for some odd reason, this comic got more of a reaction than the commercial did. I mean, yeah, they're both the same idea, but in the comic, when you learn that the little bouncing ball filled with bean paste is actually a human being (who apparently now has a broken leg), it just strikes me as much worse because you usually don't consider a yukkuri to be on the same level as a human being.
To be fair, you could argue that a cartoon character is also on a different level than an actual child, the only difference is that the cartoon character can actually be given a human-like personality where as yukkuris are mostly ignorant, but overly innocent to their actions. Yeah...I'm aware this entire post can be taken in many different directions, so I'm going to stop now.
Awww, Why would you be soo mean? In the fifth panel, it looks like her "master" broke the toy she way playing with in the first panel. What a bastard. This all just isn't right...
I suppose the biggest reasons why we'd be affected more by this comic than the actual commercial are that we know Reimu unlike some random cartoon/kid, and the yukkuri retains the blood and bruises instead of magically being healed with a couple of pulls and washings here and there.
That and Reimu is a cute little girl (or adult depending on the artist) and the cartoon kid isn't.
MMaestro said: Child abuse IS a joke because people over-inflate the issue. Spanking? Child abuse. Letting your children go to the mall without parental supervision? Child abuse. Kid manages to sneak out of the house without the parents noticing? Child abuse. Getting into a verbal argument and throwing pizza at them? Child abuse. (Yes I looked that last one up)
You'd be surprised how much your comment makes me feel sorry for my friend who's mom is a problem alcoholic who, among other things, slammed his head into and oven, screams at him over basically nothing on a daily basis, and made him afraid of wooden spoons until he was 11, because she beat him with them, and another who's father would spank him with a belt until the buckle imprint was visible on his rear over shit that probably wouldn't have come around if the dad wasn't such a bastard in the first place. Oh yeah, the second one's dad also made him cut acres of sagebrush as punishment, like, with a crop scythe. I'm all for light corporal punishment, but, having seen the way some people live, especially in the ghetto near my house, I think that the people over-inflating the issue are, yes, full of shit, but when you give your kid actual trauma, I think
My heart broke in two, today, and the sad thing is is that this is very much real, it happens all the time. This isn't even a parody, this is real. The even sadder thing is is that Reimu isn't even well off from the start (if having her shrine destroyed a couple of times or having little to no donations is a clue)and, yet, she is being abused, something that happens in Japan more often than you think more often than you think and it goes unreported just as it does in America and everywhere else
