Commercials Involving Stereotypes?

          Today, commercials and advertisements have one of the greatest influences in an individual's decision making. It can either impact them in a positive or negative way. Commercials and advertisements are a way of companies to convince you into buying their product. Sometimes when this is done, it may make the consumer feel bad about themselves. So in order to feel better, they decide to buy the product.

          But how can a commercial be so powerful? One way of doing it is by using stereotypes. You all heard the saying, "asians are good at math", "men can't cook",  and "guys can play sports better than girls". These are just some examples of stereotypes that limit a person's ability to do things. By this I mean, "men can't cook", discriminates all the men in the world to not pursue a cooking career. This is wrong because no one should be told that they can't look, live or act a certain way just because of stereotypes.

          With all these stereotypes being said around in society, it may lower an individual's self-esteem. An example would be the commercial about how a man is seen based on what kind of truck he has. In the commercial, the people being asked questions said that they would pick the man with the truck rather than the man with the car because a truck can make you seem more "manly". Although this commercial may have been intended to be humorous, I think its offensive. No one should have materialistic things to show who you are. A man should not need a truck to prove that he is worthy. This just goes the same to the commercial for Abreva. One of the bridesmaid felt uncomfortable showing her face because she had a cold sore. The message being delivered seems as if a woman should feel embarrassed about themselves if their skin is not clear. Commercials like this should be stopped because there should be better ways to showcase a product without putting someone's self-esteem down.

Are Parents Taking it too Far?

          In today's society, many young adolescents look down on themselves, maybe because of insecurity's due to appearance or even abilities. With these problems occurring, don't parents understand that their child's problems are big enough already? I guess not.

          On a social media site, the parents of their 12 year old son, Rushawn, decided to punish him by posting a collage of him with a haircut that makes him look like an old man. The person who cut Rushawn's hair was his father, Fredrick, who co-owns a barber shop. The reason for giving his son a horrible haircut in the first place and posting it online was because Rushawn's grades at school were not improving. “Parents are at a loss,” the 34-year-old dad said. “When you go to discipline kids these days, they can’t necessarily use physical punishment they way parents did in the past, but they have to do something.” The father believed that this form of punishment was okay to do because after humiliating his son, Rushawn's grades began to improve.  Although this punishment worked, I do believe that there is a fine line between shaming a child and disciplining a child. 

          The idea of punishing your child in a public manner is what some people would agree to. But, in my own opinion I think it is wrong. I find it wrong for parents and guardians to do this because shaming someone where the whole community can see it, can cause an embarrassment to this person. Not only it will embarrass them, but as well as lower their self-esteem. How can a child go to school with all their classmates seeing what their parents have done to them, without feeling bad about themselves? There must be a better way to handle this situation. The best way to do it in my opinion is to have a serious talk with their child rather than exposing the situation publicly because that is a form of bullying!