CI 5472: Critical Lens Commercial Analysis

Little Boy

Okay, so I thought that this commercial fits well into the reader/audience-based/rhetorical lens. Clearly, this commercial is targeting a specific audience with specific goals in mind. The brand of condoms wants to highlight the possible outcomes of having unprotected sex and ending up with a monstrous, ill-behaved child. The commercial draws its audience to assume that a.) children throw tremendous tantrums, b.) they cannot be controlled, and c.) that by using a condom, you can prevent this from happening. While some of these assumptions might be true, there are also alternative views of children and parental control as well as other ways to prevent pregnancies. What is important to note in correlation with using this lens, is that nothing is explicitly stated in any way; the audience is left to make the connections and thus inferences on their own. One of my roommates watched the commercial with me and did not understand the connection between the screaming child and the condom company…it really is up to the viewer to correctly interpret the images presented in the video. My friend was bringing something to her viewing of the video that I was not and therefore she had a different reaction and understanding—or misunderstanding—of the commercial. The commercial is able to use the frightening image of life with children as a means to ensure that people associate their product with safe sex that will prevent pregnancies and lives bogged down by awful children. They also end the commercial by saying, “Zazoo Condoms. Fun. Sexy. Safe.” Again, this equates the condoms with these images in direct opposition of the grocery store tirade—final score fun: 0, hell: 1 (at least).

To correlate with this lens, I also looked at the commercial from a gender lens. I think it is interesting to note that the father is the one in the grocery store with the child. As is often portrayed, he does not appear to know how to deal with the child’s bad behavior as made apparent by his inability to control and end the never-ending tantrum and the disheartened look on his face throughout the commercial. This inability or lack of knowledge on how to care for children is a male stereotype that makes men seem incompetent in areas of child-rearing. I think the commercial can also lend the viewer to assume that the man has been tied down unwillingly by the child and this leads into the dominant perception that men are “trapped” by woman into relationships or marriage. The “ball and chain” metaphor can clearly apply to the man in this situation with his little boy. What’s more, the commercial is for a brand of condoms—condoms offering protection for men and women to engage in sex without “negative consequences” such as an unwanted pregnancy. Because the parent in the clip is a man, this could imply both the use of condoms to avoid children as well as permanent ties to a woman. The commercial places the responsibility for contraception on the male by presenting him as the one dealing with the grocery store situation. In general, I think men do receive much of the responsibility for providing contraceptives one because they are typically stereotyped as being more promiscuous and two, because they are also stereotyped as being driven by their sexual urges—leading to the more promiscuous behavior. It is almost as if the commercial is a warning for men to use a condom in order to further their days of freedom, their ability to “sow their wild oats” before being tied down. Because of these assumptions and the fact that he is the looks at the camera at the end of the commercial in despair and regret, it seems directed more at men than women. I think the commercial would take on an entirely different meaning if the parent in the clip were a female, perhaps suggesting that dangers of similar female stereotypes about having sex; it might turn into an abstinence commercial rather than a contraceptive commercial in our society.


I think that both of these lenses could be applied to other commercials that indirectly target their specific audiences with messages they can infer. Students could look at print media in various magazines and perhaps determine what those messages suggest about who the magazines audience is and what things have meaning to them; this could also be used with television commercials on various channels—how do the commercial on Lifetime differ from those on ESPN? This would be an interesting study to do and I think students would be amazed at how much they are targeted by the media and companies. Students could be assigned—or chose different channels/magazines/newspapers or even websites and asked to analyze the commercials or advertisements used within them. After this has been accomplished they could come back to the class and in small groups present their findings and compare their analyses. Then the entire class could discuss what each group came up with and how the media and producers use these lenses to shape how members of our society think. This could be a reflective practice as well in which students question their susceptibility to these advertisements. Overall, I think this would be a neat way to not only teach students how to use these lenses but also to force them to analyze what is presented to them in the media.