Cultural Criticism of My Dad Is A Liar Commercial - Essay Example

Cultural Criticism of My Dad Is A Liar Commercial The world is made up of many people constantly trying to persuade us into trying different things and doing certain things. To achieve these they employ different tactics depending with what they are selling, whether it is an actual item or an idea. Most of them will use advertising as a tool of getting to their target audience and in order to address their audience accordingly they use rhetorical strategies in their advertising. The main reason for using rhetorical strategy is to change the perspective of the people and convince them to get their products (Richard 88). Together with selling the main idea or item commercials also do sell a number of non-materials ideas and ideals to their target audience. This paper intends to explore how rhetorical strategies has been used in the commercial My Dad Is A Liar and the effect the non-material ideas and ideals it is selling on the viewers and on culture. My Dad Is A Liar is a television commercial created by MetLife insurance company Hong Kong. The purpose of the commercial is to influence and persuade parents in the People’s Republic of China to purchase different insurance covers for their children depending on their children’s needs or the dreams they have for them. The commercial begins with a young girl below the age of 10 years taking a walk with her father from school. She hands over an essay to the father who starts to read the girl’s essay, which is voiced by the young girl. From this we are able to note that the commercial uses the young girl as its main subject because it is trying to sell children’s insurance covers therefore it is most appropriate to use a child to pass forward the message. The girl’s father in the commercial and other parents that we get to see as the commercial continues are used to represent parents who are the main target audience of the commercial. The girl and her father are both Chinese implying that the commercial, which is based in Hong Kong, is trying to appeal to the Chinese population to purchase the different insurance covers. In the first section of the commercial the girl is praising her father. It starts by her acknowledging that her father is the sweetest father in the world. She continues praising him and the scene changes from the street where they were taking a walk to a different scene and it keeps on changing to support each description that she gives about her father. The commercial in this case is using video to paint and support the girl’s descriptions of the father. This makes the message more vivid and straightforward to the viewers. The girl’s short phrases and childish tone brings about a cheery mood. This mood is backed up by lively background music. This is to make the commercial tone vibrant. The second part of the commercial introduces contrast into the commercial. While the first part of the commercial was vibrant and full of praises for the father, the second part begins by the girl declaring that the father is a liar. This is a contradicting statement to all that was said in the first part and it introduces shock. The tone in this section drastically changes from a vibrant tone to an emotional and sentimental one. This new tone and mood can be noted from the change in background music. The background music in this section is slow and emotional. The emotional and sentimental moods can also be seen from the change in voice variation of the girl; she speaks quietly and slowly in this section. Film has also been used to enhance these new tones. The facial expression of the father changes after he reads the statement declaring that he is a liar. This strategy has been used to captivate the viewers’ attention. The viewers are left expecting the girl to list the instances where the father lied and probably make him look bad but instead the commercial has employed this contradicting statement to further bring out the good qualities of the girl’s father. The section describes all the sacrifices the father makes and the acts he has to go through in order to protect his daughter from all his problems and weaknesses. The section is intended to make the viewers to relate to the father’s sacrifices because it is generally expected that all parents make sacrifices for their children. The commercial ends with written texts stating that a child’s future is worth every sacrifice. The commercial then acknowledges that everyone has a dream for their children and invites people to visit their website to find out more about the insurance packages that they could get for their children. This is a direct persuasion to the public to get their insurance packages. Commercials have a great impact on human behavior and culture because apart from selling their main idea they also sell many other non-material ideas and ideals. These ideas and ideals have been packaged together as one with the major subject or concern of the commercials. These might not be the main message being passed to the commercial’s audience but they sure do affect ones perception of different things and culture. The non- material ideas and ideals found in the commercial My Dad Is A Liar are discussed below. Love is one of the ideal that have been presented in this commercial. Existence of love as an ideal can be seen throughout the commercial. The girl’s father clearly loves her and that is why he makes all sorts of sacrifices for her. He has to pretend to be all the things that he is not to make his daughter happy. In the essay, the girl says the father lies because of her, an indication of how much he loves her. Such an illustration of love has the ability to affect how people perceive love. In the commercial love is illustrated as the sacrifices one makes for the ones he or she loves therefore the viewers might end taking this as the true meaning of love. Education is another value that is being passed by the commercial indirectly. The commercial emphasizes on the need for the parents to take their children to school. This implies that education is being valued. The commercial begins with the girl walking with her father from school, we also get to see the father assisting her in her studies and in her essay she says her father wants her to do well at school. This will make the viewers to note the importance of education to their children and make them value it more and hence ending up with a population of educated people. Competition is being encouraged in the commercial. The girl’s school holds an essay contest where the best students get awarded. The girl in this commercial is awarded for the essay that she wrote about her father. This idea is able to cultivate into the viewers the spirit of competition. The viewers are made to understand that every time they work hard and do better than other people do they will be rewarded. This has the ability to have an impact on the overall culture of the people by making them a competitive group. The virtue of kindness has also been portrayed in this commercial. Kindness is presented in the commercial when the father and the girl are in a restaurant. He shows kindness while paying the waiter who served them meals. The girl mentions that the father is the kindest. The viewers after watching this will probably also want to be considered to be kind by either their loved ones or the people they deal with on their daily lives and therefore they will end up changing their attitudes by being kind to others. The ideal of lying has also been featured in the commercial. The girl talks about the father being a liar. Lying is considered a bad moral in a typical cultural and societal set up, but in this instance, it has been presented a good thing. The commercial seem to be encouraging the ideal of lying if it is done to protect the people ones love. This might actually influence the viewers to take up the habit of lying and lead to a lying nation. The commercial is selling an idea that money is an important thing to have. The girl’s father is seen to be taking all manner of jobs to be able to earn a living and provide for the daughter. He is running from school after escorting the daughter to go seek employment, which he does not get and ends up doing minor jobs such as cleaning utensils in a restaurant, promoting a coffee shop and carrying of heavy bags on his back. This shows the viewers the different lengths that one can go through just to earn money. It might influence them seek all sorts of employment to be able to earn money. Eventually this might lead to a culture of working people who are not selective on their area of work as long as they get to earn money, which is an important thing to have because it makes the people they care about happy. The commercial is selling an idea that people can be pursued to buy or get things by providing them with good offers. This can be noted at the part where the girl’s father is trying to promote a coffee shop. The banner he is carrying has been written “buy one get one free”. This will influence the viewers to be attracted to things or products where more is being offered for less money. Therefore leads to a group of people looking for ways of getting more from the amount they have. Work Cited Johnson, Sheehan R. "Chapter 8: Rhetorical Analysis." Writing Today. Longman Publishers, 2012. Read More