Shrek Sells Out

Posted on May 25, 2010 at 12:01 pm

I loved the new Shrek Forever After movie. But I was very sorry to see that the lovable big green ogre is not just living happily ever after over in Far Far Away. He is all over the mall selling everything from credit cards and breakfast cereal to junk food and greeting cards to kids and their families. It even includes “limited edition “Ogre Green” filled Twinkies.”
The press release from Dreamworks, explains that Shrek has a wide range of “partners.”
This is of course just another way to help make more money for the studio. But it is detrimental to the integrity of the product itself to commercialize it this way and it is particularly regrettable when it is attached to products that are unhealthy for children.

(more…)

Teach Kids About Advertising

Posted on April 29, 2010 at 3:57 pm

The Federal Trade Commission has a terrific new online game for kids that will teach them to understand the difference between someone trying to tell them something and someone trying to sell them something. It’s called Admongo.
The FTC’s message to parents:

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the nation’s consumer protection agency, has created the Admongo campaign to help teach kids about advertising. The campaign has four parts:

* a game-based website at Admongo.gov;
* sample ads that can be used in the classroom;
* a free curriculum for use in the 5th and 6th grades, developed with Scholastic, Inc. and
* teacher training videos.

Together, these tools can help teach kids basic ad literacy skills.

As a parent, you can be a valuable partner in this campaign to help equip your kids with the critical thinking skills they need to be smarter consumers. With your help, kids can learn to ask three key “critical thinking” questions when they encounter advertising:

* Who’s responsible for the ad?
* What is the ad actually saying?
* What does it want you to buy, do, or think?

By applying the information they learn through this campaign, your kids will be able to recognize ads, understand them, and make smarter decisions as they navigate the commercial world.

The site also has resources for teachers to help them include media literacy in the curriculum.
The game is not enough to teach kids the difference between genuine opinion and advertising, but if it inspires conversations with parents that are reinforced throughout the week as we model our own responses to the messages in the media, that will remind not only kids but the rest of the family of how insidious these messages can be.
Many thanks to Pat Goslee for showing me this site.

Related Tags:

Advertising Elementary School Parenting

Why Are You Seeing That Trailer Before This Movie?

Posted on April 21, 2010 at 3:59 pm

I often hear complaints from movie-goers who think that the trailers run before the movies they bought tickets to see are inappropriate. This has become even more important now that the MPAA has made the rules about content in trailers even more opaque, Slate explains how trailers are assigned to films. For the chains, it works according to

The “quadrant” system. As many as six trailers play before features at major chains, like AMC and Regal. The studio releasing a given film typically has automatic rights to two of these slots, and theater executives (in consultation with higher-ups from various studios) select the remaining four. Though theoretically studios and theaters could attach any trailer to any movie, they usually decide which releases to promote by using the “quadrant” system, which divides potential audiences into four different categories: men under 25, women under 25, men over 25, and women over 25.

This does not apply to independent theaters, which select trailers for films they will be showing.

MPAA to Revise Rules

Posted on December 19, 2009 at 10:34 am

Following my phone meeting with Joan Graves and Marilyn Gordon of the MPAA and the FTC’s report (citing my article) criticizing the motion picture industry, the MPAA has informed me that it will be making some changes to its rules after the first of the year. While they did not give me any details, I believe that the new rules will improve the alerts on “green band” trailers. As I reported in September, the MPAA made an unannounced change in April of this year, switching the “green band” language that begins most movie trailers from the unambiguous “approved for all audiences” to the meaningless “approved for appropriate audiences.” They may also address some other concerns in the FTC report, including the marketing of promotional tie-ins for children that market PG-13 movies, un-rated DVD versions of previously rated movies, and some response to the FTC’s finding that “In its review of marketing plans and ad placements, the Commission found explicit and pervasive targeting of very young children for PG-13 movies,” including specific attempts to disguise the level of violence in the marketing campaign.
I am hopeful about their willingness to address the concerns I raised and I will provide the details of the MPAA’s new rules as soon as they are available.
On a related note, the LA Times’ Patrick Goldstein has a very good point to make today about the MPAA’s poor judgment in giving the new Meryl Streep movie, “It’s Complicated” an R based not on a scene of pot smoking by people in their 50’s but because there are no bad consequences.

Apparently, everything would’ve been fine if only the characters had been killed in a gory car crash because their reflexes were slightly impaired after sharing the joint, which surely would’ve served as a stern warning to kids not to ever touch the evil weed.

…

It’s another outrageous example of the lunatic priorities of the MPAA, which claims to serve the interests of parents but actually dances to its crazy drummer, happily handing out PG-13 ratings to unbelievably violent movies like “Terminator: Salvation” while whipping out the R rating at the first sign of a few naked breasts or, God forbid, an unsheathed penis. In Rob Marshall’s upcoming film, “Nine,” Daniel Day-Lewis smokes non stop through the entire film, but since it’s only cancer-causing tobacco, the MPAA had no problems giving the film a PG-13 rating. That’s a travesty. If you’re going to restrict kids from seeing a movie because of pot smoking, you certainly should apply similar standards to heedless cigarette smoking.

The R rating for “It’s Complicated,” which hits theaters Christmas Day, is especially ludicrous. It would be one thing if we saw Kristen Stewart smoking weed in “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” since the movie is right in the sweet spot for teens and tweeners. But if the MPAA is really sticking up for families everywhere, it hardly seems to be a parental concern that impressionable kids are going to be flocking to see a romantic comedy featuring actors who are — in the case of Streep and Martin — even older than some of their grandparents.

‘Couples Retreat’ Poster Omits Black Stars

Posted on November 16, 2009 at 2:44 pm

I thought there was nothing that the awful movie “Couples Retreat” could do to be more offensive. I was wrong.
According to the Huffington Post, the blockbuster comedy has eliminated one of its four couples in its non-US posters. It is the black couple, played by Faizon Love and Kali Hawk.

The studio has “retreated” from this position and issued a statement saying that they made the decision only to emphasize the stars most recognizable in the international markets. Of course, you don’t get recognizable by being left off the poster. Now, if I had been in this movie, I would ask to have my name, face, and performance excised from the film. But this decision, insensitive at best, overtly racist at worst, is terribly unfair to the performers and insulting to the audience.