One disturbing trend that has been recurring in commercials is the celebration of the blurring of the line between license and freedom in India. As it is, law enforcement in our country is nil and somehow, these ideas of India Shining and the fantastic education system are frankly, just ideas to many of us. India has made huge strides since Independence in many ways but we are nowhere near where we could be. Our urban education system either produces nervous wrecks trying to cope with the system or snobs who know Daddy will pull strings to get them plum jobs so that THEY don’t have to worry about anything. Where the lower middle class and lower classes fit in is a tragic enigma in itself.
But amidst all this chaos, even if we cannot rely on our government or our education system or law enforcement officials to keep our society civilized, at least family values need not be completely run over by greedy organizations trying to make big bucks by packaging their products with this devil-may-care, manipulate-and-ignore-the-adults-because-they-are-too-stupid-to-know-better message. I refer to the Motorola ad in which a teenager is clearly abusing his privilege to live under his father’s roof by strewing his stuff all over the house. No, don’t even start with the line that it’s just an ad, get over yourself. Ads wouldn’t even exist if they didn’t have the power to convince and convert.
The Motorola ad shows the speaker phones still plugged into his ears and him nodding to his irate father as though in agreement, but actually in time to whatever he is listening to on his Motorola phone. In the West, if a young man/woman is still living under his father’s roof, (s)he is required to keep their stuff in their room, which depending on their relationship with their mothers, have to be kept within certain limits of cleanliness with varying degrees of help from their mothers. This, as well as the Virgin mobile ads(and maybe others that don’t come to my mind now), seem to be advocating an irresponsible and rude behavior in Indian youth, something that the West will not tolerate in its own youth.
The West has stronger law enforcement to ensure that consequences to such behavior not only curb these tendencies at the source, but also in others who may be trying to follow such wrong examples. Unfortunately, in India we do not have such watchful and strong agencies built into our system. So if we do not even exercise good judgment in our values and messages that various media dump on us, we, like lemmings, are headed for mass destruction. I advocate the formation of a board of educated parents of children of various ages(including grown ones) of both sexes, who can help keep commercials as advertisements for products, not inappropriate messages for an already belabored society. if you spend money, you should have the right to also ensure that you live peacefully in spite or because of it.