Advertising diatribe

[hixon]

Holly Lisle wrote:
> 
SNIP
> 
> I stand by my statement.  I was responding to the article Harald dug
> up on advertisers targeting of children, especially those who are
> preschool and even pre-verbal.  

Sorry about the misunderstanding. Had been skimming the issue until your
post came on line and had forgotten the age defination narrowness of the
word children.
 
> I was _not_ commenting on anyone's choice of television as a
> medium of entertainment -- you and Van and Celia and whoever
> else who leapt to the defense of the medium as a form of
> entertainment need not feel threatened.  

Wasn't threatened, just thought the statement too general as it objected
to television as a whole - rather than just aiming at advertisement as
is in the subject line. Didn't understand that the subject under
discussion was still _Advertisement_ on television, but thought it about
Television itself. Thought the subject matter had drifted from the
original - as conversation _does_ tend to do.

Everything creative, whether it be television, movies at the theatre,
stage plays, or even books, have their examples of outstanding,
excellent, quite good, fair, mediocre, and trash. Even THAT is largely a
matter of opinion, and therefore moot. Should think that applies to
advertisement as well. There have been advertisements (like those of
Morise <sp?> The Cat) that have been hilarious and pure entertainment in
and of themselves. 

Who was it that said something along the line of -- everything is ninety
percent garbage?  Can't remember if that is an exact quote or not.

Personally use the mute button on my remote when most of the commericals
are on. Greatly enjoy watching plays, films, ballets, travel logs,
nature programs, and other such things that - for me - come under the
heading of entertaining and often educational. 

Don't believe an entire media should be trashed due to a small section
of it being offensive, or considered dangerous to small children by
some.  You (indefinate plural) may have a good point about "Small"
children. But that is why parents are suppose to be in control of what
their children see, hear, experience - at least until they go to school.
Most of us are not able (or are unqualified) to home school our children
or grandchildren.

Consider television like "a book you don't have to hold" due to the fact
that many books (adult as opposed to those of small children's books)
particulary fiction, do not have pictures, nor sound. The visuals of
places one has never been to, along with the background sounds, and yes,
even the background music, has increased my enjoyment of books since one
now has first hand (albeit virtual) sensory input to add to my inner
vision of the books read. 

Anything that adds to one's sensory data banks - that doesn't cause harm
to the physical being (in case anyone misinterprets my statement to
include drugs) - has beneficial applications. Especially miss the maps
and floor plans that were often in fiction (particularily mysteries) in
my youth that rarely are encluded in recent years. When reading
fantasies, noteably high fantanies where a lot is going on all over the
place, often refer back to maps (when avaiable) in the front of the book
to be able to SEE where one is mentally. 

If one has in the past (virtually or otherwise) seen an ice berg, an ice
floe, and a glacier one would have a better understanding of how each
form of frozen water differs from the others. But for nature programs
would not know that glaciers are not always solid sheets of frozen snow,
but often have caves, crevices, and up-surges. Also would not know that
they are often tinged a light blue inspite of not being over deep water.

Even in the purely entertainment level positive "serious subject" things
can be learned. Because of an episode of "Quantum Leap" about a pool
player the basics of geometry are now better understood. Something that
would not happen from reading about it in a book, no matter how good the
verbal visuals were. This is because of my being a visual learner rather
than an aural one. In high school was sent to the "Basic Math For Girls"
class, which one guesses must have been different in some way from
"Basic Math For Boys", due to not being able to understand abstracts
without solid visual examples from daily life to hook them to.
Constantly repeating to me a bunch of rules didn't stick and couldn't be
understood.  Some people could pass the course by parroting the stuff,
not me.  Have to understand what is happening to remember it.

My own opinions. Your mileage may vary.

Celia

-- 
Author/Publisher of the CD-ROM book: ANIMAL-DRAFTED VEHICLES. For 
ordering information, Email hixon@empirenet.com

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