The Weirdest Cancer Research Advert I've Ever Seen

Discussion in 'Movies/TV shows' started by Tyro D. Fox, Sep 25, 2014.

  1. Tyro D. Fox

    Tyro D. Fox Ho, hog, heg! I can does Game Dev thing, yes!
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    [video=youtube;xZ0aksbiiXw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ0aksbiiXw[/video]​

    I apologize if this advert isn't available in your region of the world for reasons that are probably pretty petty but this thing is just bizarre to my head.

    I'm not going nuts right? This is a very confused advert, right?

    OK, so, it's about Cancer Research. A noble cause, right?

    For those that can't see it, it's about a little gray blob man in a dark, miserable but stylised world that finds a strange glowy blue thing that fell from the sky. He touches it and it seems to give him a disease of some kind. But he just carries on; beers with mates, working and such until he's riding a bus and then explodes into blue goo. The goo covers other blob people and they all perish in the same way.

    Then the issue of people exploding escalates. These little blob people start to take precautions against the widespread destruction this disease is causing. They wear masks, educate themselves, try to keep the populace calm while they figure it all out.

    Until a paperboy explodes and suddenly, everyone panics. Cities burn, people popping like Vulcan zits. The President barricades himself off while people outside are dying.

    The camera pans out over the destruction only to show that this is just a growth of cancer in a petri dish that is being treated with some new drug. As this man drips from his pippet, apparently unknowing of the strangely intelligent lifeform he is willingly wiping out, he delivers a badass line followed by a blare of horns:

    "Time to die Cancer."


    I'm not insane am I? I mean, how am I meant to feel? I'm OK with destroying a disease, not the ugly, lumpy cousins to the Minions from Despicable Me. You see, this is a little civilisation that's something of a mirror of our own. I know they 'subtly' add little hints as to what the little people represent but...It's still a city of people being wiped out by us.

    Not some mythical plague or a mountain or something. Us. Humans. We are killing them.

    I don't get why I'm supposed to want to fight cancer when the advert makes them out to be a helpless victim. It's not like you get any indication that every single one of these little blob people are evil. Just sort of there. I mean, the Domestos adverts get this right. They have these cartoonishly evil germs that you don't mind being dissolved away with detergents because you get that they're the bad guys. The Cancer People seem not only blameless but a really close comparison to ourselves.

    Who wrote this thing? Have they seen a cancer advert before? Your meant to tell us all about so and so that was saved thanks to cancer research. Or at least pick a fight with cancer like it's a heavyweight, russian super boxer and we're collectively Rocky.

    As cancer looks down and says: "I must break you". We all get to say "Well, screw you right back! Say 'hello' to smallpox for us and don't let the doors of oblivion hit you on the way out!"

    That's empowering. That's fun. That makes sense.

    This...This is just messed up. Am I the only one that thinks this? If so, this might be a good case for how weird British TV can be.
     
  2. Crimson Lionheart

    Crimson Lionheart Professional Sh*tposter
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    Weird as this might be, this is actually pretty cool.

    And expensive.....
     
  3. Tyro D. Fox

    Tyro D. Fox Ho, hog, heg! I can does Game Dev thing, yes!
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    I agree. It's really good looking and the fact that I'm invested enough in this tiny short to talk about it, means someone was putting in some damn good work here.

    It's just that I have no idea why or how I'm supposed to feel. My guess would be empowered but it's the destruction of an entire race. That's horrible. The concept is messed up. The production values are fantastic.
     
  4. Dilly Star

    Dilly Star The Dilliest in the Galaxy
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    No, it's not just you. This is very strange rhetoric to use in this context.
     
  5. Fenris Rose

    Fenris Rose Going Through Changes
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    Honestly, I thought it was rather funny.
     
  6. Katanga

    Katanga The Fear
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    It's most certainly a change in presentation from the usual cancer advertisement, to say the least.
     
  7. Bot-chan

    Bot-chan A Pony Every Pony Should Know

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    Well, I've seen ads before that seem to go against the very thing they are trying to advertise, but this... is really messed up.
    It's just like one of those sci-fi movie plots where some evil, self-righteous aliens want to wipe out the human race because of whatever reason. Except here, humans are replaced by gray blobs and the evil aliens are now... well... evil humans. And I'm supposed to cheer for them?
    Yeah, I get what they were trying to do here, but as the ad chose to depict the blobs as helpless victims instead of a serious threat, it looks very misguided.
     
  8. mike406

    mike406 Moderator
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    Humans are the real cancer. But more seriously, yea it was a pretty weird way to depict cancer cells.

    Sent from my XT1080M using Tapatalk
     
  9. Legion

    Legion Occasionally Seen
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    Yeaaah that was kind of weird.
     

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