Emma
Donahue
AP
English
Ms.
Gaszo
19
September, 2014
Pathos Advertisement Assignment
A few months ago, while scrolling
through Tumblr, I came across a video with several captions trying to convince
others to watch this video. I saw responses in all caps saying how sad it was
and how hard they were crying so naturally I had to watch it. This video started
out depicting a teenage girl’s life in Thailand dealing with a father who is
deaf and mute. She gets bullied at school for having a “dumb” father, and her
resentment towards him is obvious. The advertisement shows scenes where the
girl’s father is looking at her lovingly and encouraging her to “study hard!”
and to “eat more so she can grow tall!”. His unconditional love for her is
obvious, but she is under stress from the tormenting she is experiencing from
her peers and only feels annoyance towards her father, and that he is an
inconvenience. This already makes the viewer’s heart ache. Here we have a
father who wants to do anything he can to make his daughter happy and a
daughter who would rather be on her own without him. The story progresses and
the daughter attempts suicide after a fight with her father and he rushes her
to the emergency room, begging for them to save her. The viewer is anxious
because the doctors do not seem to understand him, but eventually they realize
what he is saying: he is willing to give all of his own blood, to save his little
girl. The last scene shows the daughter waking up and finding her father dead,
and the narrator says something along the lines of, “sometimes the best father is the one who
cares the most”. She got her wish, to be without him, but realized too late
that this was not what she wanted at all. This was an advertisement for life insurance
and it made the viewer feel sympathy for the loving father and makes one wish
the daughter appreciated him more. It encouraged a love of family and makes the
viewer want to do as the father did, and do everything they can to protect
their family, and in this case, buy life insurance. Within one minute of the
video I was in hysterical tears so clearly the director did their job well. They
expertly use guilt (the girl not appreciating her father) and fatherly love to
tug at the viewer’s heartstrings. They easily could have made a boring
infomercial with a narrator who recited facts about life insurance, but clearly
this emotional video is much more effective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBobmn_u98w
I remember the commercial's trenchant effect the first time I watched it. I agree that it is so powerful, to the point that even in a culture in which family values were a bit different, the appeal to emotion would still be effective.
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