Critical disease

22Mar11

Nice ad, right? Makes you laugh too. Does not make fun of the fat guy and is actually quite respectable towards him. You do pity him and are glad that he got a better deal with Bharathi Axa, right?

Yeah, I liked it too. Initially. After all, how many times do you see a fat man represented these days on television in any way? But after all, how many times do you see a fat man represented in television?

I had a long chat with a person once about why choosing a handsome/beautiful person is an easy way out for most story telling because then one does not have to flesh out the character of that person for you to make a story. If you choose to cast or write about someone who is clearly not in that mould of conventional beauty, then you have to spend time and effort getting the audience’s or reader’s sympathy towards them.

In an advertisement, you have very limited time or space. This ad was about 45 seconds but most ads are about 30 seconds which gives you no time or space to get the audience’s attention. The print ads are worse. There is just one picture which you need to use grab the attention. Which is why ads are dominated by beautiful people. I say “dominated” because there are always those ads with the fall guy.

And when I say, “beautiful”, I mean conventionally beautiful.

So, you see the insurance ad is an oddity. It has a fat man as the protagonist. But the fat man has a critical disease. That kind of plays into the stereotype of linking diseases (and the worst diseases) with fat people. You cannot have a beautiful person in the ad with a critical disease because, by convention, they are flawless and are symbols that the audience is supposed to identify with. In this case, the audience pity the fat man and that translates into the “what if” fear that the insurance company play on.

Yes, it is a nice ad and it was nice to see a fat person in an ad but it still sucks to be the (seemingly) only one to see the subtle play of prejudice and stereotype in the ad.

Assholes.

Filed under: Uncategorized   |  Leave a Comment