Anyone who looks at a lot of movies will be familiar with
the ‘parental’ warnings which come with them in terms of
their content –
i.e. showing scenes of a sexual or violent nature.
Yet they might be better marked with warnings about some
of other things which upset us all.
As a vegetarian I would like movies to have a warning upon
them if they show animals being killed, or people eating
meat.
As an atheist I would like to protect children from all
religious propaganda, so that a film like
‘ The Ten Commandments’ might come with the following: –
Warning! This film contains scenes of a religious nature.
I can’t see this happening in a hurry, but that’s no reason to give up on the issue.
What might be more achievable in the short term is a listing
of all product placements within all new films.
Given that many of the products which are placed within
movies are ones which raise health concerns, particularly
in relationship to junk goods , then this would be a real
public service.
So here is what we need to know.
Which products or services have been placed in each movie?
How many times have they each been show, & for how long
within the movie?
&
Have any of the performers mentioned these products
within the move?
In the meanwhile I’ll just keep looking out to see how many
product placements I can list in each movie I watch.
The only problem with this is determining what is active product placement, and what is just background noise. A lot of modern entertainment is filmed in city scapes, where graphical representations of products are commonplace, even in places where the creator(s) did not intend for product placement to take place.
Most times when product placement is deployed as an advertising strategy it is blatantly obvious.
Take one of my favourite TV shows of all time – Seinfeld. Here product placement was so obvious that you’d have to be a moron to miss that it was happening. In such cases I don’t see how a “warning” would even be needed. I still don’t buy Tupperware(tm), but use recycled take-away containers – even though Tupperware promises the patented “blurp” to lock in the freshness…
For me it is more important that people become educated users of the media rather than “consumers” of media. And with media I mean all types of media, including music, film, TV, print, web and whatever media the future will bring.
People can be the media, Wikipedia, LiveLeak, Youtube etc. springs to mind. But with todays technology even movie production is within ordinary peoples reach. Just look at Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning, a free movie (see http://www.starwreck.com/) which is a parody of the Science Fiction genre.
But back to the core issue. If people are dumb enough to be affected by product placement in the media, let them be. After all they are spending their own money on buying these products!