Creative Imagination of the Market
by Remigius de Souza |
| Cars and Guns: Catch them young |
Cars and Guns – toys at Rs 10/- to Rs 2000/- from roadside stalls to malls!
Cars and Guns – games at cyber cafes / at home PCs at nominal cost!
Createneeds wants; Create supplies: These are Market strategies. Take it or leave it.
Cars and Guns – games at cyber cafes / at home PCs at nominal cost!
Create
Sophisticated Child labour
After subjecting women to abuse, for example, “Made for each other” (comparing women companions to cigarettes/stubs/butts), now they have targeted the children. A new class of sophisticated child labour is emerging. Recently this trend has gone far beyond, the not-so-famous ad “Mummy, sach kya hota hai?” (Mummy, what is truth?), though it was banned (on protest!).
Even in the First World countries, where the TV was started, there are strict laws against targeting and using the children through advertisements. However this may not be true of First World India [FWI], in the waves of globalisation, market economy, freedom of expression etcetera. There is no sensor board here to nab the TV ads. Our governments and ministries are busy handling internal – external –natural – man-made calamities. But where are the cultural police gone? Who is supposed to intervene on behalf of the children: the parents, families, teachers, or NGOs?
It is known, at their tender age the children are under the burden of formal schooling and no play. They have hardly seen the ‘real’ world. At this stage if they are pushed into the dragnet of ‘virtual’ world in the ‘real’ time, the results may not be far from predictable; that they may be reduced to be robots at the hands of the vested interests that control the powers. The educated busy parents in the First World India may not be ignorant about this, though they may find some relief from the children being engaged in viewing TV etc.
Or, aren’t the people happy enough by the cinema-sports-world superstars farting in the ad-world? Or, who is ultimately paying in reality, at what price, cost, value and benefit, and for whom? Anyone could see the Geobbels’ policy is followed by the capitalist long-term agenda to catch them young.
Once the pluralistic Indian society is now pushed to polarizations, communities to be communal, and families to be nuclear. In such a situation, holistic thinking and action may prove detrimental to self-interests, or so one may think. Hence the matters of control, conflicts, corrections, cure...or care are taken over by – or given up to – various institutions, and the family, community, the collective takes the back seat. Of course the institutions work in their respective compartments. In the vigilant society it should be the other way: the family – community – the collective should take the reins / steering wheel in its hands, and the institutions (GOs / NGOs) to be used as bullocks / wheels, while navigating through any situation.
Remigius de Souza
(18-10-2006)
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© Remigius de Souza. all rights reserved.
Where is the vigilant society existing in India? May be in metros where like minded people slog over years to bring about a change.
ReplyDeleteBut in streets , I see no one even open their mouth, if not their presence. When someone takes up an issue of throwing trash on roads, they all close their doors and sit inside.
When someone , uses child labour rampantly and not even paying them, others visit their houses to admire their new home and share the Biryani. When people do not get any water supply, others use suction pump, and no one bothers to check them out.
What kind of citizens are going to be bred in such homes? I notice a blatant "me myself" attitude even with children. Sad .
Here vigilant society exists within the selfish groups like caste and religion, for playing up one against another. (As rightly explained in the last para of the post.).
The situation is deteriorating, and needs corrections soon. But who and when?
Many thanks! You have added many dimensions to this post. You made my day.:)
DeleteI have read, in some countries there are strict rules against using children in TV advertisement. I have never stepped out of India, though I had wished to visit our neighbours.
The child artist at least get paid well (I hope so) but imagine all those young girls and boys who are working as domestic servants with no pay and no rest :(
ReplyDeleteOMGoodness!
DeleteYou call them Artist! Ad-world was formerly called Commercial Art. Now it is, so also architecture, called Creative Industry. Interesting, isn't it? While one – Ads – is Virtual Reality, other –Arch – is concrete (silent Nuclear bomb?). Whether they belong to a class of Constructive or Destructive Creativity by proxy, or default, or Design is another matter.
Indeed money is never enough for insatiable wants! No one has time to think about social justice! Does anyone see the Consumerist Ploy to breed culture by the corporate?
Is advertisement, an art or creativity? Is it creativity, taking into account its Content, Context and Process? The Process can't be criteria for art or justification. Consider Energy, Ecological and Environmental Cost beside the economy. Who pays for it, other than the poor?
The kids – viewers and the so-called artists – are subjected to kill their innocence and spontaneity. As if Mass Schooling is not doing enough. The children are soft targets, whether elite or the poor.
Thanks Ghazala, for raising the issue!!