Who is the intended target of this clip? What does this video imply about the new cigarette label laws made by the FDA? How is the video's target represented? Is the video effective in exposing their intended target? If so, what aspects of this piece of satire make it effective?
FDA Cigarette Warnings
Recently, the FDA has imposed stricter and more graphic label laws for cigarettes. Some large cigarette companies have said that this is a violation of their first amendment rights. The FDA defends their decision by saying that the labels are for the public safety and are the best way to show smokers the risks of smoking. This satirical video clip we found on collegehumor.com targets these new laws imposed on cigarette companies.
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It seems fairly obvious that the video is targeting these new FDA laws. What they are saying is the video is that there isn't much more the FDA can do to make smokers understand the risks of smoking other than to actually give them someone dying of lung cancer. The smokers in the video are more or less unaffected by these new laws and apathetic towards the cancer patients, which seems to be saying that smokers know the risks but just don't care. This idea also seems be confirmed by the woman at the end of the video. The one guy even says how taking care of his cancer patient has just become an ordinary thing, which seems to suggest that the effect of any news laws that are introduced will fade over time and just become another part of purchasing cigarettes. I didn't think the humor in the video was very clever at all, most of it is pretty cheap and comes from the smokers apathy towards the cancer patients, as well as the ridiculousness of handing an entire human being to someone. But despite its lack of funniness(In my opinion) it still seems to be able to get its point across, that the FDA needs to cool it with the new laws.
The video is obviously targeting the new FDA cigarette laws. The video wants to tell people that the new cigarette label laws mad by the FDA are useless and those laws won’t make any affect on smokers. The video represents it by showing the smokers’ apathy when they get cancer patients with them. In the video, the smokers still don’t pay attention to the smoking risk even if they are with the cancer patients and they behave apathetically to them. They still smoke even if they see how the cancer like which may caused by smoking. They are totally unaffected by the cancer patients. Moreover, when the seller transports the cancer patient to the smokers and when the smokers take them home, the smokers behave like carrying goods, not cancer patient. I think those patients are the symbol of the new cigarette label. How will the smokers treat the new label laws will just the same as how they treat those cancer patients. All of the behaviors of the smokers in the video suggest that they won’t pay attention to the new FDA cigarette laws at all and ridicule the useless of cigarette warnings. I agree with Phil’s opinion that the humor is not clever in the video and I also don’t think the video is funny.
The video is targeting the new FDA cigarette laws. The makers tried to mock and make fun to the new FDA cigarette law; however, it is not very effective for me. In the clip, the smokers don't care about the new FDA cigarette law's warning, they are still smoking in front of the cancer patients. In this way, the makers are saying that the smokers won't pay any attention to the new FDA cigarette law. Moreover, I agree with Yi that those patients are resembles the new cigarette law. The smokers in the video also present their views that they are going to buy the cigarette as usual. I like what Phil states that it is kind of ridiculous that handing an whole body to someone.
It seems that the FDA is the intended target of this clip. People who purchase cigarette have to take patients of lung cancer with them. As one officer of FDA says, this is a new campaign against smoking. However, such warning in the clip seems have no influences on smokers, which implies it was in vain that the FDA imposed the stricter label laws for cigarettes. This clip is sort of irony. It satires the strict graphic laws made by FDA officers. Smokers don't care about what they bring to home with cigarettes. One guy says that these guys with lung cancers are the same thing, which I think is satirizing all label laws are the same thing and they don't care it. This target is explicitly exposed by the ending part of the video in which lung cancer patients and smokers get together, lighting up cigarettes and smoking together. It is true that this video is not humorous at all, however, I think it does a good job in satirizing FDA cigarette label laws.
I agree with other posts that the intended target of this clip is the new FDA laws. Overall, this clip tries to convey a message that the new FDA laws are useless and don’t have much effect on the smokers. The laws state that everyone who purchase cigarette will have to take home one lung cancer patient. However, those smokers really care little about lung cancers and just ignore those patients. Even that they have to take care of the patients and listen to patients’ complains all the time, they still don’t want to stop smoking. As one guy in this clip said, he was already used to it and the lung cancer patients couldn’t have any influence on his favor for smoking. In addition, at the end of this clip, a woman patient lighted a cigarette and said that she just wanted to relax using cigarette, and she didn’t care about lung cancer either. Her words enhanced that the new FDA laws are ineffective on both smokers and lung cancer patients. This clip is not so humorous and effective, and I think the only satirical part is that people need to take one lung cancer patient home when purchasing cigarette. I also agree with Yi that those lung cancer patients resemble the new FDA laws, which are ignored by smokers. In other words, the smokers will still purchase cigarette regardless of the laws.
I was having trouble clicking on the link and I didn't know if anyone else was so heres the link again:
http://www.collegehumor.com/embed/6643839/even-worse-fda-cigarette-warnings
The makers of this video are prompting the audience to wonder how effective advertisements of the risks of unhealthy habits such as smoking are. Recently, the FDA has been trying to put graphic and very real images of the effects of smoking on packs to rid people of the desire to smoke. However honorary these attempts are, they aren't as successful as the FDA and other officials would hope, as other commenters have mentioned. I find an interesting parallel between this and signs on campus on the oval for abortion. There were many large signs showing an aborted fetus covered in blood. More than convincing people not to get abortions, they were more grotesque and hard to look at. I didn't feel inclined to learn more or anything of that sort. I feel that the creators of the video are commenting on the same feeling that smokers get when they see a picture on a pack of cigarettes. Very few will feel completely inclined to put down the pack because of a picture.
I agree with Phil that this clip is pointing out that the FDA feels as though there isn't a more extreme measure they can go to than to hand someone a lung cancer patient. The video is targeting the FDA with regards to their latest advertisement choices, showing that people will still continue to smoke if that's what they want to do. The man saying it's become part of his daily routine to take his patient to radiation therapy, as well as the woman who says she just wants to relax with a cigarette show that people who still want to smoke will, regardless of what the advertisements say. I feel as though the video is effective in exposing their intended target, although I think you could also argue that it's directed at smokers. The question could force smokers to question what it would take for them to realize smoking is bad for them, would it take an extreme such as being handed a lung cancer patient? The video gets its point across clearly, and I feel like the reactions of the people in the video help portray the comments the video is trying to make.
the FDA laws and smokers in general are the target of this clip. it targets smokers because it is showing how much they just do not care to quit no matter what the outcome will be. it implies that the new laws will not have any effect on the people that smoke. they will smoke no matter how many in-their-face warnings they have, even if its a dying cancer patient. the video is effective in exposing the target especially when it shows the guy who says that all the cancer patients are the same. its like hes been there and done that and there are no knew warnings they can throw at him because he just wont quit. the video even showed a cancer patient holding a cigarette to show how die-hard smokers are and how they will never quit and how smoking will always be there.
Do you guys believe this clip demonstrates how serious smoking really is with the use of lung cancer patients or are the patients overkill conveying the message? Why or why not? Also if anyone is a smoker, did this clip make you feel differently about the habit? Why or why not, would anyone consider quitting smoking cigarettes because of this clip?
I also agree that the video mocks the FDA's attempts to show smokers the health risk that come with every purchase of cigarettes. On the smokers side it shows the FDA that Americans who are addicted to smoking will continue to smoke no matter what the FDA trows at them. Although the handing cancer patents over the counter maybe intended to be overkill on an attempt to predict/mock the next stab the FDA will take at smokers, the gesture is a noneffective approach to not only the smokers in the video but a noneffective way to use irony to create a satirical video for college students to view. By only addressing a small audience of college students who smoke and me not being a smoker, this video strikes very little interest to me. The video maybe a little more effective by making the video more target rich. Maybe bring in people who don't smoke and how they might complain about people smoking in public and how the FDA supports the non smokers while taking away the freedoms and rights of people who do smoke.
@Lindsy
Thanks I had the issue with the link as well
I think this clip does a great job at demonstrating the serious nature of lung cancer while still satirizing the FDA's labels. I am not a smoker but I somehow doubt that this clip would effect me even if I was it is just not strong enough to do something like that. I disagree that the target audience was the FDA I think that it was meant to target smokers. Smokers are the only ones who are really effected by what is one the label and this clip points out that most likely the won't care. The FDA could go to crazy extremes but it wont have an effect on smokers. Overall I think that the effectiveness of this clip really needs to be judged by someone who smokes as they are most directly effected.
How do you guys think this clip should change in order to affect the smokers targeted in this video? Do you think that anything would help?
How do you personally think the FDA laws should change?
This college humor video can be seen as a satirical piece relating to the FDA laws. After analysis one can find college humor carefully injects their thoughts about smoking into the video. By having the cigarette buyer carry around a person dieing of lung cancer for each pack of cigarettes purchased, college humor not only pokes fun at the cigarette but also uses it as a symbol. This symbol represents the extra weight carried by cigarette users, not physical weight but rather the damage (lung cancer) the users carries because of poor decisions. While it might be funny that a cigarette user has to carry around someone dieing of lung cancer for each pack of cigarettes purchased, College humor also points to the fact a user will continue to buy cigarettes even if they have strings attached.
It looks like a lot of people believe that the FDA's new label laws are not effective. Instead of creating more graphic labels, what do you think the FDA could do to convince people to stop smoking, or will people continue to smoke regardless of what the FDA does?
As always, I think that this was an effective video posted by the college humor people. I think that the first target you see is the FDA and their continued labeling, as if the people all around us dying from smoking related disease is not enough of a warning. Even though that may be the original target, I think that smokers are also the target (like I alluded to above). You would think that the cancers, emphysema, and mouth disease caused by cancer would be enough to deter people from smoking, but clearly it isn't... even the incredibly high taxes on tobacco don't deter people. I think that the dry humor used is very effective in this video. Taking something very serious and turning it into something you can laugh about is one of the most effective ways to get people talking or thinking about something.
I don't think there is much that the FDA can do in the way of labels to effect smokers. I think that if they want to stop people smoking they need to focus more on preventing people from starting. I'm not saying that it is impossible for people to quit but I don't think a label on anything really ever stopped anyone from something they wanted to do.
i do not believe that using the lung cancer patients really demonstrates how serious smoking is. I feel that the humor and satire downplayed the message a little bit and using a more serious tone would have been better for getting that message across. I am not a smoker, but i believe that this would not convince a smoker to quit. There have been so many commercials and ads about how bad smoking is over the last couple years, and if people still ignore those, then they will probably just continue to smoke.
In response to what Cale said, I believe people will continue to smoke regardless of what the FDA does. Smoking is addicting and most people don't have the will power to stop. Every smoker has heard of the risks that they take while smoking a cigarette. Also, on the pack of the cigarettes they have the risks listed right on it so every time a person grabs a cigarette, they will see the risks. The only way people will stop smoking completely is if all of the cigarette companies went out of business and I don't see that happening anytime soon.
In response to Lindsay Drumm's question "Do you guys believe this clip demonstrates how serious smoking really is with the use of lung cancer patients or are the patients overkill conveying the message?"
Personally, the creators of this video seem to not be presenting the impact of smoking on a person's health in an effective way. They almost seem to be making a joke of it all by giving the smoker a lung cancer patient. The people in the video do not seem phased by the person given to them and still light up. Granted, the creators of the video could also be mocking the attitude of smokers toward respect for their health and their bodies. Very few of them take seriously that the choice to smoke cigarettes daily will drastically shorten their lifespan. Still, I feel that the creators have not done a good job to show how smoking is bad and those doing it should stop.
I personally feel as though almost everybody fully realizes the health implications with smoking. So while the FDA's warnings may or may not infringe on the businesses rights, the public will still purchase cigarettes. This issue to me seems like it is not that important and no matter which side you land on the result will end up the same. I would however like to hear others views.
Cale
I think it is nearly impossible to get people to stop smoking. You would think that raising taxes on cigarettes to the levels that they are would make people avoid smoking, but that isn't what happens at all. People won't smoke if they can't afford to buy cigarettes, but they are willing to give up other things to smoke, even if that means lacking other seemingly essential things. In short, people will smoke no matter what, because even if prices were too high for most people to buy them there would just be a black market just like illicit drugs.
The video shows that the FDA's labels are not very effective and are not helping the situation. College Humor also shows makes fun of how the FDA is not really doing their job in preventing people from smoking. The people in video who buy the cigarettes still continue to keep buying them even though they know the consequences of their bad habit. This just shows that the people who are smokers do not really care about their health and want to try to quite smoking. I think that the people who are smokers understand the laws and know the outcome of smoking but just simply either don't care or do not believe that it could happen to them, as if they were an exception to being that one smoker to not get lung cancer. I think the FDA could do a better job of trying to help prevent smoking but at the same time these people seem to be hard to persuade.
In response to cale, I believe that the only way to really stop people from smoking would be to make it illegal. When people get really addicted to somethings its hard for them to stop, so the only way to make them stop would be to make it illegal. They would have a choice to make: continue to smoke and get in trouble with the law, or quit. Im sure many would end up quitting.
It seems that most people think the strict graphic laws made by FDA officers have no effect on the smokers. Those labels just became a part of the smoke pack and smokers won't pay attention to it. So I think we may need to think about what is the effective way to stop people smoking. Because smoking is a bad thing not only for the smokers but also for the people who around them.
I agree with Zachary, I think that it's almost impossible to convince someone to stop smoking by the labels on their cigarettes, even to handing them a lung cancer patient. I think they have to choose to stop smoking on their own, for some personal reason. Pictures of blackened lungs damaged from smoking have been around for years, and people still continue to smoke. I think that it's more of a personal choice to stop smoking rather than something that is influenced by the advertising on the boxes of the cigarettes.
This College Humor video attempts to satirize the recent moves by the FDA to place graphic and disturbing images on cigarette packs. This practice, while new to the US, has been in use by European countries for some time. The video portrays the new label laws as ineffective, evoking only apathy from smokers. For me, this video only reiterizes the point that smokers will continue to be smokers. Now that the effects of cigarette smoke is widely known and taught there seems to be very little that the FDA can do in order to curb cigarette use. This is emphasized in the video by the passing of actual cancer patients to cigarette buyers. In the end, College Humor's opinion seems to be that even if the FDA puts the dangers of smoking in the spotlight everytime that someone touches a pack, those who are so inclined will continue to smoke. As for the humor in the video, I can't say that it did much for me. I understood the point that the creators were trying to get across with their satire, but in the end the whole thing just seemed sad to me.
the repetition of non smoking commercials and peer pressure when it comes to drugs and alcohol have been showing up on our t.v screens since we were adolescents. Although this clip isn't an actual t.v commercial it is still available to the cyber public. Do you guys believe seeing the repetition of these kind of commercials shaped your decision in participating the habits or acts? Especially seeing them from a young age to now? Would you say the repeating technique was successful or became annoying so you ultimately ignored the total message?
I agree with Katherine that most smokers don't have enough will power to reject the addiction of cigarettes. When I went to Singapore, according to the local laws all cigarettes must have real smoking patients' pictures on the package, just as shown in the video clip. Personally I am not addicted to smoking but seldomly smoke some. Even people like me feel no force preventing me from buy a pack of cigarettes, no need to mention those addicted smokers. The video clip is provoking FDA to come up with some more effective and practical ways to claim the harmfulness of smoking.
it is clear that this video means that the law made by FDA clearly could not really stop the smokers from smoking. and clearly the video clip targets the label law made by FDA.in the end of this video, there is a old woman who got lung cancer still lighting a cigarette for the young man who wears a formal suit. and i agree with the above opinion that if we want to get these people out of smoking. the only thing we can do is to make it illegal. however, it is not possible to do that because some of the smokers may say that it is offended to their human right. so, actually, there is nothing we can to with it.this is a funny video i can say when i saw the shop assistant bring a cancer patient to the people who wants to buy cigarette from the shop.but, actually they see nothing and not really affected by it at all.
I think what the FDA should do is to do researches to reduce the bad components contained in the cigarettes instead of creating more graphic labels because any label made by FDA seems to be ineffective to the smokers. How about switch their direction to "the products"? However, I think it can be really tough. Probably they will continue to convince people by graphic labels.
To respond to Cale's question,
If people in america want to smoke I feel that they are going to smoke. This is the land of the free and people want the rights to exercise their freedoms. The only way the FDA could stop people from smoking could be by banding smoking within the United States, by passing laws making it illegal to smoke or posses smoking tobacco. The FDA can also drive the prices of cigarettes up so the middle and lower classed citizens wont be able to purchase cigarettes due to the lack of money in order to satisfy their habits.
I think if the FDA increases the price it may cause more people to quit rather than making smoking illegal. Just like the time in history when alcohol was band in the US. people still drank and ran moonshine, they just had to find a way to seek it around the government. This caused a less amount of American citizens to drink but it didn't completely weed out the boozers and I think that historical time has some connection to the current fights against smoking.
In response to Lindsay's question "Do you guys believe this clip demonstrates how serious smoking really is with the use of lung cancer patients or are the patients overkill conveying the message?"
I believe that this clip isn't serious enough. This video was meant to be funny, not serious. This clip would have been more effective if they took it in a more serious direction like having it take place at a funeral home or maybe in the hospital where a lung cancer patient is dying. I don't think the purpose of the clip was to show how serious smoking is though.
I believe the video points to the very heart of the cigarette problem. People will continue to smoke regardless of the consequences. Cale asked the question of what can the FDA do to convince people to stop smoking. The answer is nothing. As seen from the video people are given a person, dying of lung cancer, every time they buy a pack of cigarettes. The video shows people still buying cigarettes. With that in mind, taking the thought outside of the video and applying it to the real world presents the concept of over taxation on cigarettes (to prevent people from buying). If the FDA were to do this, people would start to steal in order to fill the need to continue to smoke. Taxes, laws, among other things, won’t stop people from continuing to use cigarettes.
Now preventing people from starting to smoke is a different problem in its entirety. I could do an entire paper on why people choose to smoke (social injustice, parent revolt), but solving these problems I can’t begin to fathom how to fix.
Though I think anyone who smokes is asking for health complications later in life, I do think it is a bit too much for the FDA to be adding more laws. I certainly understand enforcing a warning label of some kind, but there's only so much that can be done to make smokers realize how dangerous smoking is.
I actually don’t think this clip shows how serious smoking really is with the use of lung cancer patients. It doesn’t talk a lot about how bad lung cancer patients feel about the illness, or how harmful the effect lung cancer would have on people. There’s no detailed or effective demonstration about this. The only message I get from the clip is that both smokers and lung cancer patients don’t care much about smoking and cancer, and they continue smoking regardless of their health condition. So I would say that the use of patients in this clip doesn’t help to demonstrate how harmful smoking is. And this is the reason why I don’t think many smokers would consider quitting smoking because of this clip.
I don't think smokers will stop smoking due to the FDA labels. As Katherine said, smoking is addicting and stop smoking is a hard process for those smokers.That's why most smokers give up in the process. And those people who starts smoking can hear the damage of smoking almost everyday by many different people. So, the FDA lables are useless. Moveover, I agree Shuni's opinion that this clip doesn't talk about the serious damage of smoking by using the cancer patients. I think the cancer patients are used to point out the point that smokers don't care about the damage of smoking.
A lot of people think that it is almost impossible to make smokers give up smoking and the only way to do so is making it illegal. This is because, many smokers keep smoking even they already know side effects of smoking. However, we must think about government's position. It is not secret that government's profit from selling cigarettes takes considerable parts of it. So, it is also impossible make smoking illegal. On the other hand, there are some moves which assert that weeds should be regal because marihuana is less addictable and less harmful than the cigarette or alcohol. How do you guys think about it?
This target-rich satirical video about the consequences of smoking seems to be aimed mainly at smokers and the FDA, trying to get smokers to stop smoking. Smokers will not stop their habits because of an FDA label, nor will they stop smoking because of a video. Its just simply too powerful of an addition. Also, going off of what Junghyun said, banning smoking altogether is basically impossible. It would not only increase illegal trade, but also raise the crime rate over drug-related disputes and cut out a lump of money that the government gets from taxing the tobacco. While this video does a good job of turning a few people away from smoking, it will not have an effect on the vast majority of poeple out there.
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