Thursday 10 May 2012

Of Mice and Men Subject and Theme in Our World: Advertisements

In the story Of Mice and Men, George and Lennie are lonely and are isolated away from society. They have no family and no home. They have no one to seek help to. The only people they got is each other and are stuck working in crappy conditions such as on a ranch.

There are many examples of lonely people in the world. They might not be in the same situation as George and Lennie (they're homeless and all they can do is work on a ranch), but they are in somewhat in the same situation as them where they have nobody to go to. In this post, specifically, I will talk about advertisements.

Advertisements play a big role in today's society. They persuade people towards their product or towards a message they are trying to portray. Depending on the way they portray the product or message will decide if the advertisement deems to be successful or not.

One example of a company that does advertisements are Kids Help Phone. There are many kids and teenagers in the world that feel like nobody likes them, they have no friends, and/or they are being bullied. They do not like to socialize with society for fear they will be judged and not accepted for who they are. Kids Help Phone is a non-profit organization. Simply, it is a number that anybody can call to receive free one-on-one help about their issues. Here is an example of a commercial.

So as you can see, they've done a great job portraying this message to call them for help. At the beginning of the video, they show a statistic that states that the third leading cause of teenage death is suicide and that every 40 seconds someone in the world commits suicide. They also state that even though no one might understand the pain they are going through, Kids Help Phone is always there to help and listen. It states the message firmly and clearly and I think this advertisement can persuade kids (or anyone) to call them for help.

Here's another example of a commercial that specifically talks about children being bullied. This commercial is made by a Canadian organization called Concerned Children's Advertisers (CCA). Here is a description on what is CCA about taken directly from their website: "Since 1990, Concerned Children's Advertisers has been producing and delivering social messaging campaigns on issues of challenge in children's lives, including:
  • Drug abuse prevention;
  • Child abuse prevention;
  • Child safety;
  • Self-esteem;
  • Media literacy;
  • Bullying prevention; and
  • Healthy active living.
Our campaigns include nationally televised Public Service Announcements and curricula for children in kindergarten to grade eight, as well as tips and tools for parents and community workers. When presented with informative messages, we believe that children are capable of making informed and balanced life choices."
In this commercial, they show a scene of a group of girls making fun of this girl who is just casually going to class. She is being bullied. Bullying causes a person to significantly lower their self-esteem. They don't socialize with society because, due to their past events, they think that everyone will just keep hating them for who they are. In reality, these victims of bullying are normal people like you and me. They have done nothing to deserve being bullied. In this commercial, CCA uses the slogan "Words hurt. Don't be a part of it."
Here is one last advertisement and this time, it is an advertisement created by the Government of Canada. This commercial advertises a websites where parents can go to learn more about drugs and how they can talk to their kids about it.
This commercial shows kids saying and knowing the names of some street names for various illegal drugs such as Juicy for Marijuana with Cocaine. They then advertise their website. To make this advertisement seem more appealing, since this is a national government promoting this cause instead of some random non-profit organization, people will think that this is a very serious issue and should support this cause.
In my opinion, John Steinbeck's theme in the story Of Mice and Men is that even the most loneliest and isolated people from society have the biggest dreams. How do all these commercials and examples have to do with the theme? Simple. Any child who is thinking of committing suicide has a reason to commit suicide. However, committing suicide is a permanent and negative solution to a temporary problem. These children want their problems to go away and they want to be able to be happy people and socialize with other people. But they can't due to whatever problem they're facing. Kids who are bullied don't want to be bullied. They haven't done anything wrong but they are still victims of bullying. They want the problem to stop because this causes depression inside them which is not a good thing. Any person taking drugs takes them because they are addicted. There are many reasons why they might be addicted which I won't go into any detail. However, they want to stop their problem but the drug they are taking is so addicting they don't want to. Even if they don't want to stop, if they were to see the consequences this drug does to you, they would probably want to stop. So as you can see, every single person in each one of these commercials is lonely and isolated from society. They are encountering a problem that stops them from being involved with everyone else so they are lonely. Their biggest dream is for their problem to stop because they don't want to be depressed. There you have it. John Steinbeck's dream can be related to advertisements that advertise real world problems.
Thanks for reading,
~ Ramez Fares

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