Teenager Stereotypes
Written by: rwlovett on February 4, 2012
Teenagers are often stereotyped against; this essay examines how two commercials portrayed how teenagers are stereotyped against, as well as how the teenagers who make smart decisions are rewarded. This essay also examines the rhetoric of both the Above the Influence, and Honesty Pass it On commercials.
In the Above the Influence commercial, there were four male friends, about 17 to 18 years old gathered around a table in a diner. Figure 1 shows the four friends gathered around the table at the diner. One of the friends asks another if he wants to get “twisted”. Which the friend is asking if he wants to go and get high on drugs. The friend replies to this in a responsible manner that he has to “hit the books”. In other words, the second friend is putting his priorities in order and would rather do well in school by studying
Figure 1
instead than going out with his friends to get high. The teenagers are dressed in a hoodie, vest, leather jacket, and track jacket. The friend in the hoodie was the one to ask the one in the vest if he wanted to get “twisted”. This is a stereotype because often times people who do drugs wear hoodies to hide things in the pouch, where as people who take education in a higher account often wear vests. As a reward the man who is serving at the diner refuses to give him the check when he asks for it. The man replies that they are “straight” meaning that the food they got was free. I think the man was impressed with the teenager who refused to let drugs get in the way of education; as a result he rewarded the teenager for doing the right thing, where most teenagers probably would have not done the right thing.
The Honesty Pass It On commercial starts off by showing a teenage boy sitting on a bench listening to his music; he has long black hair and is dressed in studded black leather, and has silver chains around his neck. Figure 2 shows the teenager sitting on the bench. This is an assumption of what most teenagers look like, even though this is not the case. There is a lady sitting next to him on the bench waiting for the bus. When the bus finally comes, the woman
Figure 2
gets on the bus forgetting her purse. The teenager then picks up the woman’s purse and looks in at and takes off running through alley ways. As he is running through the alleys, you can see that he is being chased by a police car. This is racial profiling, which means that the police are watching certain types of people, in this case, teenagers. The teenager runs around the corner, and appears to have evaded the police. It then shows the woman exiting the bus and the teenager handing her the purse. This is another stereotype because people think that teenagers steal all the time. The police can be seen in the background pulling out of the alley way. In Figure 3, the police are seen pulling out of the alley way. The police call the teenager over and give him a donut as a reward. The police having donuts in with them are another stereotype against the police.
Figure 3
These two advertisements show that teenagers do drugs and steal which is a stereotype within itself because they steal in order to get money to do drugs. They are similar because instead of dealing with their problems, teenagers often run away from them. But both commercials also show the flip side of this because the two teenagers both did the opposite of what most people would assume about teenagers, and they both got rewarded. The Above the Influence advertisement was a bit much, because in a real life situation, the man who was serving at the diner would not give up thirty plus dollars because of a teenager making a smart decision. In the Honesty advertisement, the teenager is sitting on the bench, but for some reason, he doesn’t make any attempt to get on the bus.
In the Above the Influence commercial, the logos appeal is that most teenagers are susceptible to peer pressure and often times make poor decisions. The teenagers who do make the right decisions, such as the case with the one who wanted to focus on his studies should get rewards. The teenager in the video got rewarded, but at an expense to the diner. It can be assumed that the diner is family owned because the man who is serving at the time refused to give the teenager a check because he was rewarding him for a smart decision. The Honesty advertisement logos on the other hand has many fallacies, such as when the teenager was waiting for the bus to arrive but he does not get on it for some reason. Another logical error is when the woman gets off the bus at the next stop and gets back on the bus after she forgot her purse. Another facility is that the police follow the teenager through the alley way but they don’t try and stop him, even though we know that they saw him take the purse. The last facility is when the police make it through the ally so easily when the teenager had to jump over trash to make it through.
The pathos appeal of the Above the Influence commercial is that the people who made the commercial produced mixed emotions, such as disgust, when the teenagers were talking about doing drugs, then surprise when the server at the diner paid for their meal. The Honesty commercial pathos appeal was surprise when the teenager stole the purse, then confusion due to so many logical fallacies.
In the Above the Influence commercial ethos appeal is that the ad was sponsored by the National Drug Control Policy. The original credibility of the teenagers went from no credibility to a split between negative credibility with the bad character when the teenagers went of to do drugs, the other half of the credibility is good, and lies with the teenagers who stayed to pay the bill because they had better things to do than doing drugs, such as getting a good education, as a result they were rewarded with a free meal.
The credibility of the Honesty advertisement goes from negative, when the teenager takes the purse, because we can assume that he is stealing it, because he opens it up and looks inside it. It is further brought down when the cops are in pursuit of him. The credibility then becomes positive when the teenager returns the purse to the lady.
Teenagers are often stereotyped against, including by the police, and those of authority. Those in authority should be demonstrating a positive, rewarding experience by rewarding teenagers when they make smart, healthy decisions such as the two teenagers portrayed in these commercials. They can be simple things, such as in the Honesty ad, when the police gave the teenager a donut.
Works Cited
“Above the Influence.” YouTube. 10 May. 2010. Web. 14 November 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlyVJ-eU46I
“Honesty Pass it On Purse.” YouTube. 10 May. 2010. Web. 14 November 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v9e9JdPMdM
Originally Published on Triond
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