There are loads and
loads of commercials where someone says something like, “Your generous gift of
$19 a month will change lives.” Then they show a montage of those for whom the
money is being raised, which is usually dogs or crippled children.
And I notice that the
dogs in the montage are all desperately, heartbreakingly sad. But the crippled
children are heartwarmingly upbeat, in spite of themselves.
I’m not sure what
it
all means. I’m not sure if this is an improvement over how things used to be.
It used to be that crippled kids in charity ads also had to be desperately,
heartbreakingly sad to pack the maximum sympathy punch. But somewhere along the
line, someone decided that the most effective little spokescripples must be
plucky and upbeat.
There are, of course,
exceptions to the rule. It’s okay to have commercials where crippled adults ask
for $19 a month, as long as they’re war vets. The crippled war vets are allowed
to be sad, but in an adult sort of way. They don’t have to be plucky and
upbeat, but their spirits should be brightened at least a little bit by the prospect
of you donating $19 a month.
It’s also okay for
crippled kids in charity commercials to be just as sad as dogs, as long as those kids are from other countries and are preferably not white. A good example is that
commercial that beseeches everyone to donate $19 a month so kids in Guatemala can
get surgery to fix their cleft palates. The little brown kids in the "before”
videos, who still have cleft palates, are sad as hell. But in the "after” videos, when
they don’t have cleft palates anymore, they’re smiling big. In that commercial
there’s a scene that takes place in a remote and desolate village where a boy
with a cleft palate approaches some other kids but those kids shun him like he’s
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. And so the cleft palate kid slunks away,
dejectedly. I always wonder how that scene was captured on camera. It must’ve
been staged. There must have been a camera crew and lightning all set up and
the director says “Action! Okay now enter cleft palate kid and go up to those
other kids. And you other kids shun him hard, like he’s got cooties! That’s
great! Now slunk away, cleft palate kid. Dejectedly! Outstanding! Cuuuut! It’s
a wrap!”
I wonder if they made
the poor cleft palate kid shoot that scene before they would give him his
surgery.
(Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us carry on. Just click below to contribute.)
