Commercial Analysis: Life Alert

Horisons is a Christian faith based provider of outpatient healthcare services and healthcare education to the underserved communities in the Central Joaquin Valley in California. It is organized as a 501(c)(3) California nonprofit public benefit corporation and is headquartered in Merced, California. Horisons operates seven healthcare clinics in the cities of Merced, Mariposa, Livingston, Chowchilla, Newman, Patterson, and Los Banos.

Extra Gum released a commercial to touch the hearts of potential gum costumers. It is set up in the style of a music video to a touching love song. The video starts in a High School where are girl and guy, Sarah and Juan; meet eyes for the first time. Then Sarah offers Juan some Extra gum. The video then fast-forwards to Sarah and Juan after a date in a car and they have their first kiss. This kiss is also followed with Sarah offering Juan some gum. Then the montage quickly shows Sarah and Juan together in fall, winter, and even at Prom, after each Sarah continues to offer some Extra gum to Juan. Then as Sarah and Juan age, Extra gum seems to be a part of their life.

Rebecca Gilman’s The Glory of Living is an ambitious piece of writing. The playwright takes on the challenge of exploring how an eighteen-year-old girl has ended up on death row, convicted of multiple murders. The play’s opening scene is exciting and engaging, and Gilman has a strong grasp of the characters she has created, but as the action progresses, it becomes evident that the play is missing something. The Glory of Living’s shortcomings exemplify the need for playwrights to focus on developing a Major Dramatic Question, and a protagonist with a strong want.

The show that I decided to watch and analyze about the elderly was Everybody Loves Raymond. I choose Everybody Loves Raymond because it is very relatable and understanding. The show is based on an Italian family living in Long Island New York dealing with everyday life situations. the main character Raymond must deal with his everyday life while dealing with his elderly parents who live right across the street as well. today we see that there are many stereotypes when it comes to the elderly, stereotypes such as the elderly can’t remember things, they’re nosey, or that they know it all. In the show, we see that Raymond’s parents do fall into some of these stereotypes, but also, they do things that make us think that not all elderly people fall into these known stereotypes. We are so accustomed to leaving the elderly in places such as nursing homes whenever we feel like we have no need to take care of them anymore, or if they can’t seem to do things on their own. Raymond’s parents Marie and Frank are still able to do things on their own they still joke around and make fun of their kids. Even after retirement, and helping Raymond raise his kids, they still have Rob who lives with them. Even though their kids essentially make fun of their age, Marie and Frank somehow make the best out of situations.

The article refers to how commercials that reintegrate the usage of the typical black woman misrepresentation or stereotype becomes offensive when it involves consumer

The aging of society has not significantly changed our perceptions of the elderly. Ageism is widespread in Western societies (Dionigi, et al, 2011). Older adults are seen as boring, grumpy irritable, weak, debilitated, mournful, and most significantly cognitively. These stereotypes which are negative can be allowed by the aged themselves negative self-stereotyping (Dionigi, et al, 2011) and are as well found among specialized caregivers (e.g., Cowan, Fitzpatrick, Roberts, & While,2004). The image in relation to which older adults are more ineffectual than younger adults is predominantly dominant. Nevertheless, in a variety of domains, older adults are inclined to have analogous performances and at times even do better than younger

One important aspect of ageism is that the stereotypes created are often undeserving of the older population’s actual capabilities.

3.) Strong presence in high margin health services business. In addition to UnitedHealth Group’s leadership position in the health benefits market segment, UnitedHealth Group has strong information and technology based health services platform through its business segments which is Ingenix, OptumHealth and PrescriptionSolutions. The “CNN MONEY” (2012) website states Ingenix is one of the largest health information, technology and consulting companies in the world. The UnitedHealth Group derived $2.3 billion of revenues from Ingenix which contributed $284 million (excluding $200 million in goodwill impairment and business line deposition charges) of operating profit, and an operating margin of 12.1% during FY2010.

I had the privilege of interviewing a 60 year old gentlemen who I will identify as Mr. E to protect his privacy for this assignment. The goal of my interview was to gain insight on aging from an older adult. I interviewed Mr. E in his home on a weekday evening. He expressed appreciation and was surprised that he was the focus of an interview in which his life story and thoughts would be recorded.

Moreover, elderly are exposing to ageism through the process of negative stereotyping and discrimination. Cardigan and Zsamigin 2000 argues advertising industries either ignores elderly people or present them in a negative stereotype. Labelling theorist ray et al argues ageism creates a self-fulfilling prophecy that causes the elderly to behave in a way that confirms those beliefs. Bradley refers to old age as neglected and hidden dimension of social stratification.

The news is flooded with stories of negative acts of racism, along with arguments regarding sexism and stereotypical gender roles. While major steps have been taken toward a more unified, accepting country, the United States continues to still lack correct knowledge and understanding to one of the most common “isms” in the country: ageism. Ageism is defined in Aging, the Individual, and Society as “the prejudiced behavior of individuals and systems within the culture against older adults, including negative consequences of inaccurate stereotyping of the elderly” (Hillier & Barrow, 2015, p.11). As a result of prejudice, myths tend to form about the stereotyped group of people. Facts and Fiction about an Aging America by The MacArthur Foundation

Ageing females are also portrayed as undesirable in the media due to the language used. This language is aimed at shaping, reinforcing, and reflecting the attitudes and responses made towards growing older among women. Language is understood to carry and convey the meaning which leads to the assumptions that encourage the development of discrimination and stereotypes towards ageing females. The language also has the ability to encode stereotypes and scripts that are discriminatory in nature which makes discrimination a normal part of everyday life. In particular, the media can play a role in the establishment of implicit bias through using language that is stereotypical and prejudicial when representing ageing females in the media (Gendron et al., 2016). This in turn makes older women to be portrayed as undesirable in the media. An example where the language used by media has contributed to the portrayal of ageing females as undesirable can be drawn from a popular sitcom, “The Golden Girls”, aired between 1985 and 1992. This comedy highlighted social issues that are associated with elderly women. In this comedy, the negative construction of ageing women was illustrated by the character of the octogenarian mother, where this character was depicted as being intelligent but yet stubborn with a difficult to please character. Another example of how language is used by media to portray ageing females as undesirable can be drawn from a popular commercial made during the mid-1980s. In this commercial, one of the three old women is heard asking repeatedly about where the beef is, in which older people are seen as stupid and small while being exploited (Vickers, 2007). The language used in these examples appear disparaging towards older women while illustrating the extent at which ageing women are portrayed as undesirable in the media.

Stereotypes have an overwhelming effect especially on the people they are directed towards. Studying stereotypes helps in understanding the factors leading to discrimination of certain people and not others. This is because stereotypes are depictive of opinions that are often passed from one generation to another within a particular culture. Mass media such as television and newspapers form a common source of opinions in the contemporary society (Kotter & Hess, 2012). The media presents messages in steady, repetitive, and compelling manner, making them believable to almost everybody. Stereotyping opinion and depictions from the media can thus have detrimental effects on the

There have been many advertising techniques over the past 50 years or so, but one of these changes is the adaption of ads to the shifting mind sets of people over time. An example of this previous statement is Folgers® Coffee. In the 1960s Folgers® launched an entire series of commercials which were demeaning towards women. The husbands in the commercials always had something witty and humiliating to say about the wives’ coffee, in one of the commercials the husband even goes on to say that the secretaries at his office made better coffee; the wives, sad and defeated, talked to a friend about the problem, prompting the friend to suggest she use Folgers®. The commercial always ended with the husbands’ approval and the wives feeling satisfied for attending to their husbands’ needs and wants.

In, “This Too Is Life”, the author, Lu Hsun, writes about his thoughts on life and its values as he is dying of illness. Hsun first explains the duality of exhaustion and rest, the fearfulness of exhaustion and not being able what you have to do as you have already done too much. The fear of missing out on the active, productive parts or life where you feel like you are truly living, coupled at the same time with the blissfulness of rest and simply doing nothing and having nothing to do, experiencing the comforts of idleness. In these moments of inactivity, it is easy to feel as if one is not really living life, that life has no purpose if one is not being productive. But, what Hsun is trying to express