That’s a Finnish ad against parents abusing alcohol. It’s very, very strong — and, I would think, effective.
[H/T: Gawker]
When You’re Drunk
11 Responses to When You’re Drunk
-
Sam M says:
Even more effective is this Avett Brothers song:
-
MattSwartz says:
I second Surly’s sentiment, but I think that an ad can be compelling, and even convincing, without having to be accurate, and this one is.
Perhaps this is more an ad about how kids ought to see the world than an ad about how they actually do.
I put this down as the second most compelling PSA I’ve ever seen (of course, as a libertarian, I hate PSA’s!). The best one was an anti-marijuana ad that’s shot time-lapse style: first a young man breaks off clumps from a long succession of bags of weed, and then he curls up in the fetal positions, and the clumped marijuana buds slowly start enveloping him, until he can no longer be seen. He’s fully cocooned in marijuana. The ad works because I’ve seen it happen.
-
Dan Davis says:
I don’t think nanny ads change anybody’s behavior. If it did work with cigarettes, it has taken decades plus confiscatory taxation. Ironically, it is mostly the people who can least afford it who still smoke.
-
DanW says:
Surly is correct.
Kids will excuse and adjust to their parents drinking to no end. The ad would ring true -and be unbearable to watch- if everybody else in the scene saw a monster, but the kid would just be happy that Dad has shown up.
-
Bruce Ross says:
Finnish?
-
em says:
I think it could be a powerful ad to parents with a tendency to drink just occasionally – which can be a shocking or frightening thing to children – or to help keep parents from starting to drink. Alcohol addiction though and the problems that cause/contribute can be so much stronger than the best parental love and intentions…
-
David J. White says:
Finnish?
I imagine that this a reason why there was no dialogue: it can be used in any country, with the appropriate text card edited in at the end.
While granting the validity of the objections of Surly and others, one particular element that struck me was the shot in the diner, where the child sees one parent (presumably the father) as a monstrous bunny — and other (presumably the mother) has a helium balloon for a head. I suspect that that is meant to convey the idea that she herself is not an alcoholic, but rather is a see-no-evil enabler. Somehow that stuck out for me more any anything else in the spot.
-
Stephanie says:
I don’t understand the ad. Maybe it’s a translation issue, but it says “when you are drinking,” not “when you are drunk.” And the end invites viewers to join in the conversation about parental alcohol USE, not abuse. It seems to me it’s a nanny state message trying to shame parents for social drinking, not addiction. The little children in the ad make me sad, though – how did they get them to look so fearful and bereft?
Speaking as somebody who grew up with two parents who were serious alcoholics, that ad is BS. Young kids see their parents as normal. They will bend their definition of normal to make sure their parents fall in the band of normal.
That ad is BS. The reality is much different–a teen or young adult will see a creepy monster as “normal” because they are so used to twisting their own reality so as not to see how things are effed up.
Which by the way feeds directly into the ability of clergy and teachers to sexually abuse kids. Those kids who are used to twisting awful into normal are the ones that are targeted by predators.