Poor little Smurfs

[Dreadful Scathe]

I was most upset by this (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/10/smurf_village_razed/)

Although I can see why that would be a most effective anti-war message.

Unless you're Will, in which case he'd bring the planes back around for a second pass. Bar Steward.

[Piglet]

:eek: :eek: :eek:
That can't be right, can it? Ain't there some sickos about...
:eek: :eek: :eek:

[Lou]

Forget the Burundi former child soldiers - where can I donate towards aid for the poor Smurfs? :tears:

[drathzel]

:tears:

poor smurfs!

[Little Monkey]

Poor ickle smurfs!!!:tears: :tears: :tears:

[drathzel]

Poor ickle smurfs!!!:tears: :tears: :tears:

Dont put that there, you'll scare the kids!!!!

[Minnie M]

It shouldn't be allowed - report them to the RSPCS :angry:

[David Bailey]

Am I just having a major sense-of-humour failure here, or is that just, well, sick?

To quote:
"Hendrik Coysman, managing director of IMPS, said: 'That crying baby really goes to your bones.' "

Note: this is a crying Smurf baby. In a cartoon. Which is clearly more shocking than a crying real-live baby, they're so boring.

I can sympathise - I always worry more about cartoon character distress than, you know, actual people starving or being murdered. Every time Tom gets zapped by a Gerry trap, I lose sleep.

To me, this is a typical ad agency "let's get some free publicity" stunt.

[LMC]

Is there a psychologist in the house? - it's something to do with incongruity shock or something I think - completely dissociated topics being concatenated (I'm going for the triple figure fog index here :devil: )

Actually, for some bizarre reason, this really did get to me - and I'm really p***ed off about it too, I hate that cold-blooded advertising money sharks have managed to manipulate my feelings, grrrr.

[ducasi]

Am I just having a major sense-of-humour failure here, or is that just, well, sick?

To quote:
"Hendrik Coysman, managing director of IMPS, said: 'That crying baby really goes to your bones.' "

Note: this is a crying Smurf baby. In a cartoon. Which is clearly more shocking than a crying real-live baby, they're so boring. It's not meant to be funny. It's meant to be sick. War is pretty much the sickest thing one bunch of humans can do to another.

The point of making it a cartoon is that people will turn off (metaphorically, if not actually) by showing them real-life scenes of war.

A cartoon will draw them in and get the message across.

There are no winners in war, but it's the kids who have their childhoods stolen from them that suffer the most.

If this advert helps to get that message across, can it be all bad?

[Gadget]

If this advert helps to get that message across, can it be all bad?We all know war is bad. Some terrible things are done by one human to another. We know there is blood-shed. We know that children die. Bombs and explosives create area of effect destruction. Automatic weaponry blankets an area with random slices of death. They are not selective in targets.

We know all this. We may have seen something on TV or be unfortunate enough to witness it first hand. We do not need our faces rubbed in it.
Cartoons are escapism - a visit to a childhood where "war" was playing cowboys & indians, over-acting death scenes then standing up to 'kill' your friend, anvils get dropped on charicters and they dust off to walk away (somewhat shorter).
Now this childhood innocence is being tarnished: a pool of blood growing from under the anvil. Nudging your freind, but he won't get up. The kick and noise from a real gun jarring tiny hands and echoing with white noise in a kids ear.

We don't need to be reminded how bad real life can be. We don't need our last corner of goodness, hope, life, light, love, innocence.. memories of summer days left in our minds to be stained by the evils man-kind inflicts on it's self.

Or do we?

[David Bailey]

The point of making it a cartoon is that people will turn off (metaphorically, if not actually) by showing them real-life scenes of war.
OK, but what does it say about our shallowness, that means we get more upset about cartoons than about scenes of real starving children? And what does it say about a PR campaign that exploits and encourages such tendencies?

And actually, I don't get upset about this in the way they want me to; I just get p&ssed-off by the ad company that came up with this Hip And Cool Concept.

And in fact, the thing that upsets me the most is radio reports about starving children.


If this advert helps to get that message across, can it be all bad?
Yes it can - where do you draw the line? What is acceptable and what is unacceptable?

Shock advertising is a cheap gimmick, and it demeans the charities that use it in my opinion. And from a practical point of view, in the long run, all they're doing is de-sensitizing us more and more.


(I'm going for the triple figure fog index here :devil: ).
Ahem, that's Fogg index, I think you'll find (pedant, moi?).

[LMC]

I work for a charity, so I have really mixed feelings about this shock tactic kind of stuff - if it encourages people to donate, then that's surely a Good Thing. Even if they are only donating out of guilt - I'm with General Booth that the only problem with tainted money is thatain't enough of it...

What I would *really* like to see is more charities being POSITIVE about their work - rather than showing the trauma, how about demonstrating the results? We are not always as good on this as I would like us to be (my hands are slightly tied sometimes - that's metaphorically speaking before anyone gets too excited). But I would be far more impressed by UNICEF showing pictures or film of children that are starting to recover from their terrible experiences and able at last to smile and even play. Unfortunately, that probably wouldn't get into the Metro comic (which showed the Smurfs still, above, this morning).

So from the point of view of raising profile, the advert has done its job. How b****y annoying. BUT in other ways, such advertising is completely counter-productive - one of my colleagues and I were agreed this morning that UNICEF is on our official s*** list when it comes to charity donations and won't be getting anything from me this year.

I totally agree with Gadget - superb post, rep on its way.


Ahem, that's Fogg index, I think you'll find (pedant, moi?).
Its actually the Gunning-Fog index according to the fount of all knowledge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_index) which can't find the double-g version... :innocent: - oh, and ner as well :grin:

[David Bailey]

{ snip lots of good stuff }
Good stuff.

And then she spoils it by saying:



Its actually the Gunning-Fog index according to the fount of all knowledge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_index) which can't find the double-g version... :innocent: - oh, and ner as well :grin:

Well, Wikipedia refers to it as the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease test, which I believe is incorrect ( :eek: ) - the Fogg index is described here (http://www.dantaylor.com/pages/fogg.html) amongst other places.

Although it's sometimes referred to by other names, obviously. But I've no idea where "Fog" with a single "g" came from - I'm thinking this is a mistake. In Wikipedia... my world's falling apart. :tears:

OK, excellent, thread derailed nicely, my work here is done.

[LMC]

Google:

"fog index" 421,000 results
"fogg index" 305 results

This website (www.googlefight.com) demonstrates that Google is a clear winner over Wikipedia anyway :whistle: (Google: 856,000,000, Wikipedia: 283,000,000 )

of course the results are biassed, you wanted a *clean* argument?

Back on-topic.... DJ, your point about shallowness was a good one - but I find it of far more concern that we have been desensitised to real-life horror to such an extent that this advert is apparently only to be shown after the 9 pm watershed so as not to upset children - whereas national news can show real dead bodies with real blood at any time :(

[Dreadful Scathe]

the fact that "fog" is actually a word would have nothing to do with the search results i suppose :) (Double Quotes in google search not withstanding)

[ducasi]

http://plif.andkon.com/archive/wc199.gif