Most disgusting commercial of the year. Thanks Toys-R-Us!
Peter Gleick in Huffington Post:
OK, Stephen Colbert already talked about this, but it is such an outrage, it is worth piling on.
My wife and I were relaxing, watching TV (was it the World Series? I can’t remember) when we saw this advertisement from Toys “R” Us. We were struck speechless with shock and anger.In this ad, kids are loaded onto a school bus labeled “Meet the Trees Foundation.” The guide, under the guise of being “Ranger Brad” says, “Today we’re taking some kids on the best field trip they could wish for.” He then shows them some pictures of leaves, while the camera pans around the bus at bored, tired, yawning kids. Then, surprise! He reveals they are not going on a natural science field trip at all, but to… Toys “R” Us! Celebration! Confetti littering the ground as the kids run from the bus into the store! Free wild rumpus in the store playing with whatever they want. Hooray!
Wow. What advertising company working for Toys “R” Us came up with this idea, and what executive at Toys “R” Us actually approved it?
This ad is offensive on so many levels:
- It insults science and environmental education teachers.
- It insults science and environmental education programs and field trips.
- It insults science and nature in general.
- It insults children (though no doubt these kids got free toys, and maybe even money, to be in the ad — how awesome).
- It promotes blind commercialism and consumerism (OK, I know that’s the society we live in, and the purpose of ads, and the only real goal of Toys “R” Us, but to be so blatantly offensive and insensitive?)
- It sends the message, as Colbert so cogently notes that “The great outdoors is nothing compared to the majesty of a strip mall.”
My wife is an overworked, underpaid science educator, teaching university students how to teach science to elementary school children. It is an uphill battle: not because kids don’t love science. They do. Frankly, young children are wonderful, curious, wide-eyed natural scientists. It is an uphill battle because the resources our society devotes to science education are pathetic. Elementary school teachers get little or no support or training for science education. Materials are outdated or confusing. There is no funding for decent field trips. And our kids are bombarded with subtle (and here, blatant) messages promoting blind, thoughtless, consumerism.
The results are beginning to show, as the United States falls farther and farther behind other countries in producing top-quality science, technology, engineering, and math students (STEM).
Let me express full solidarity with Gleick’s wife (but not for any reason he might like to hear 😉 ).
What should worry PG though is the possibility that TrU’s ad is just an early example of an overdue anti-green backlash. OTOH nothing kills interest in a topic like school, so…
I believe a plug for Project Wild Thing goes here.
We can discuss whether a backlash against environmentalism is ‘overdue’ another day.
“Let me express full solidarity with Gleick’s wife (but not for any reason he might like to hear 😉 ).”
Let me guess – you are making a derogatory comment about Mr Gleick’s honesty?
A man’s obtusiveness isn’t confined to legal matters
And yet you contend you are not a troll. The irony – it burns like “every conceptual tool available-and some not yet invented but inventible-to leapfrog over disciplinary barriers, stitching together the patchwork quilt of science and all the rest that humans can yet know”. 😀
Roger -it’d help if your replies were coherent and related to what one just wrote. Just sayin’
If I had 90 seconds to explain what is wrong with western society, I’d show this commercial.
Amen to that.
I feel bad for those kids. They have no defenses against that kind of brainwashing and it’s very difficult to unlearn later, IF it can be unlearned.
Absolutely, PlantinMoretus. It makes my heart cry. I thought about showing it to my 9-year old, but even though she can understand conceptually how wrong it is, her jaw would probably drop seeing all that stuff. Showed it to my wife though, who thanked me for ruining her day. 😉
a link to wonder if some people here have forgotten their childhood
http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1995/10/02#.UoK94ZQkL5w
The following days’ comics continue the amusing procrastination until the inevitable school failure. Still, who would find Calvin’s behavior as “disgusting”?
Nobody here has a problem with the children, as they are the victims who are being brainwashed.
My grips is with Toys ‘R Us and consumer culture in general. Do you think it’s healthy for society to have children crave all sorts of material and addictive stuff?
my point is that we’re dealing with human nature. OTOH the society you complain so much about is infinitely better than any in the recorded past, on a variety of fronts.
the society you complain so much about is infinitely better than any in the recorded past, on a variety of fronts.
This depends on what parameters you choose, quantity vs quality, etc. As we don’t know exactly what the meaning of life is, it’s difficult to say what society is best. Judged from a purely materialist(ic) point of view, western consumer culture is probably the best society there has ever been, although there have been societies in the past where people had their basic needs met as well. In the end that’s what it’s all about. My 98-year old grandfather in Croatia says people had it better when he was young. Yes, it was hard work, the wars were horrible, but now practically all of his children and grandchildren are divorcing, have huge debts and suffer from bad health.
WRT human nature: this is an old debate, nature vs nurture. I agree human nature has led to this, but it’s nurture that is perpetuating it. Most children in the west are being brainwashed to be consumers (and thus producers). Are they born like this? Definitely not. Could they become something else? Sure, why not? Would it be better? Depends on your point of view. I’m worried about the mix of AGW, peak oil, diabetes/obesity epidemics, financial bubbles, resource wars, air and water pollution. You’re not, as far as I can tell.
But if you want a healthy society, you need healthy minds in healthy bodies. The video shown in this blog post is all about addiction, about getting very young people addicted. It’s difficult to be(come) healthy under such circumstances.
Cato the Elder said the same things your grandpa and every grandpa has always said – that’s part of human nature too.
Without relying too much on Calvin and Hobbes, it might be better to manage our addictions (again, part of human nature) rather than push for an impossible addiction-free world. Recent example of virtuous polities suggest they are in fact more hellish than consumerism will ever be.
And it’s very difficult to find a school where your kid isn’t brainwashed, one way or another. Even alternative schools don’t cut it. See, you can take a school out of the culture, but you can’t take the culture out of the school.
“I’ve never let my school interfere with my education” – mark twain
My fav moment was the kid with the big smile holding up the orange plastic assault rifle. Doesn’t it just make you want to stand up and shout to the world that you are so proud – proud of our uniquely American Consumer Culture.
Unfortunately it reflects the values of lots of folks. They are satisfied with letting someone else try do their imagining for them. I have not been in a toy store in years. Toys R Us is like cable TV – lots of nothing worth while. There used to be a saying that success was dying with the most toys. The ad just brings home the fact that that mentality is still alive and well. At the same time we should not be too quick to blame Toy R Us for knowing their customers. They did not create the values they are exploiting.
Television in general is a wasteland, and it’s been more than 2 years since any of mine have been turned on except to watch one single DVD.
AND I saw a commercial that showed people enjoying FOOD!!!! Don’t they know there is an obesity epidemic in this country!?!?!?!?
…
Don’t you think you are overreacting just a bit? It’s just a commercial by a toy company playing on the desires of all kids to get new toys.
There are bigger injustices in the world to be worried about.
I don’t particularly like the car commercials, where the talking points tap into man’s instinct to aggressively compete (for resources, mates, etc.) with strangers, and dominate over them:
power! performance! aggressive but stylish! 0-60 in 5.3 seconds! sleek! nice curves! faster than a [competitor model]! more torque than a [competitor model]!
Even the EV’s are going that direction.
And then the propaganda makes its way into the everyday opinion. I had an old acquaintance, years ago, tell me not to buy a Prius because it didn’t have any ‘get up’. He’d never driven one.
Though I must say, I rented a car in Charleston WV a few years ago, and drove it to Hilton Head SC, and all the rental company at the moderately small airport had left in the ‘sedan’ size (I picked on the internet) was a new Ford Mustang. That car averaged like 33 to 35mpg on my trip; probably better than my old, beat up Camry.
You’ve clearly never heard of Jeremy Clarkson, you think you’ve got things bad in the states, google him sometime and I will expect you’re sympathies.
I don’t have a TV, but I’ve read about Top Gear staging a scene, where their Tesla demo supposedly ran out of juice. They were then later called out by Tesla for pushing a half charged car into a garage, or the like; the company keeping computer records of the car’s metrics.
Cato the Elder said the same things your grandpa and every grandpa has always said – that’s part of human nature too.
Just to be clear, my grandpa doesn’t say things were better in the past. He says people were generally happier than now in his region, even though people have it much better now. Your mileage may vary in Italy, but all Italians I know, are always stressed and smoke like crazy.
Except for Ugo Bardi, but I don’t know him personally. 😉
it might be better to manage our addictions (again, part of human nature) rather than push for an impossible addiction-free world.
It’s easier to manage addictions if dealers are allowed to be eliminated. If dealers run the show, 98% of the people will become and remain addicted. To tie it in with this blog post: What Toys ‘R Us is doing, ie creating an addiction (for profits, not for children’s happiness), is problematic. I don’t think it’s good for society and democracy.