Ferrante 1 Lia Ferrante English 110 Professor Warner 17 February 2013 Kids Are Insufferable, But Vacation Is Nice:

A Rhetorical Analysis and Response to Booking.coms Booking Right Video Text Booking.coms Booking Right commercial begins in slow-motion, with an all-white family of five in a poorly-lit hotel hallway dragging their heels toward their door. Lacrimosa, from Mozarts Requiem, plays a recognizable, dreary, funeral march. There are close-ups on each childs face. We see a son, no older than 8 eight with absurdly large and dark black rings around his eyes, looking on the brink of passing out. The narrator says he was sick and did not make it to the airsickness bag. Then, we learn the chubby, approximately 11-year-old boy, we learn lost his shoes on the plane. His shoes, the narrator repeats humorously, as the idea of losing your shoes is incredulous. The daughter, a young teen, wears headphones to drown out her family. Her only glance at them is an eyeroll. The mother, who perhaps taught her daughter apathy as she herself is apathetic, does not look at her family save for a doubtful glance at her husband. The irritated, exhausted, father opens the door, slowly and dramatically. A flood of light. The once zombified kids come alive, and, smiling, spread out in the room. The music climaxes, and birds chirp suggesting they enter a new world. The father celebrates, clenching his fist in personal victory as his wife looks lovingly on. From the surface of the commercial the viewer can see the family members are all wearing different color clothes. This emphasizes the dissimilarities among them. If they were all
Comment [JW1]: Nicely observed. Good combination of summary and inference drawn from observations.

Ferrante 2 dressed similarly, then it would imply a unity. The funeral march score emphasizes the punishment of family time. Subtextually, there is only narration, no dialogue and no warm physical communication between members of the family before entering the hotel suite, no touching or even happy looks at one another. Each child is a caricature of an antagonism present in American families. The sick one is embarrassing; the chubby one, stupid, careless enough to lose his shoes; the daughter is apathetic beyond help. This is presented humorously, because it is over-the-top in the commercial, but in reality it is not funny. The viewer realizes: the parents fail to comfort and let the sick one rest, nor help their other son find his shoes, nor try to engage their daughter. The parents ignore the children physically and, implicitly, emotionally. Thus, the burdens the children have dealt with is theirs alone to consider--which is why each child stares at the floor, lost in thought. This reflects the American ideal of keeping your problems to yourself, rolling over your mistakes in your head over and over. This is the great anxiety of modern American culture. So the family drags their feet toward something that will hopefully distract them: vacation! Even when they enter the room, they spread out to get away from one another. Booking.com argues excellent accommodations make any arduous journey worth it. But below the surface, the commercial represents the modern broken American family whose members have nothing in common with one another and how mentally draining that is on each member. The family shares only their love of vacation. The problem is that vacation is temporary. Booking.coms commercial is a dark but accurate example of the problems, not of children today, but of parents. I both agree and disagree with Booking.coms commercial. I agree their representation of a modern broken family is an accurate one, though it does not apply to all
Comment [JW2]: An assertion that feels like its relevant, and maybe even accurate, but I wonder if its too big. If it needs some argument and evidence to underpin it, or if we can just let it be and it exists as one of those things the audience can take issue with if they want to. This is me just thinking through my fingers, not really a criticism.

Ferrante 3 families. I disagree that Booking.com should reinforce the bad parenting message. The intended audience is of this dark commercial is adults who, if not viewing the commercial critically, find their parenting style of ignoring their children condoned by this commercial. The advertisement serves as an indirect form of peer approval. Parents would think their methods justified because the typical assumption is commercials reflect larger trends. Accepting the commercial as true to families with problems in America, I understand parents are embarrassed by their children. I disagree with Booking.coms representation of the parents reaction, as aforementioned: it is condoning that parenting. In the commercial the parents are embarrassed by their sickly, thoughtless, and apathetic kids, which is why they ignore them. You see embarrassed parents at stores all the time--the mother in Target yelling or ignoring her child so he, or she, will be quiet while throwing appealing glances at strangers, and profusely apologizing to the people around. The alternative to yelling or ignoring their child is to realize the child has needs. Since the children in stores are usually crying because of hunger or fatigue, a parent should drop what they are doing and leave to tend to their childrens well-being. Concern, showing interest, touching and glancing at your children and talking to them--unlike the parents in the commercial--will help prevent apathy. These little, constant, acts of kindness add up and make a difference. The children who are rarely asked their feelings are not going to share their feelings out of their own volition. Instead they will keep quiet and physically they will be exhausted--like the boy in the commercial, get rings around their eyes--as well as mentally and emotionally exhausted. And so the American Anxiety, of holding your problems in, is created in children. The children will eventually become emotionally unavailable, like the girl in the commercial who drowns out her parents with music.
Comment [JW3]: Introduces a kind of moral judgment.

Ferrante 4 There is something wrong with our parenting paradigms if the main concern of a parent is not their childs health, but avoiding annoying strangers temporarily in a public place or avoiding being embarrassed in front of strangers. Parents should not be resentful of their child, a symptom of embarrassment. Booking.coms parents hold a grudge against earlier sickness, forgetfulness, and apathy, and did not talk to their children. Personally, I may be annoyed when a little girl screams in Target, but I will be more annoyed when the parent is not genuinely trying to find out, or solve, what is wrong but rather is just trying to stop it. There is a crucial difference between the two. Parents ruin their childrens sense of self-worth, if they follow the example of the parents in this commercial. Really thoughtful and interesting. Im not sure I agree with everything, but thats not the point. Its in conversation with both the original source material and the audience, which is the purpose of this sort of analysis and response. Very well done. Grade: 95
Formatted: Indent: First line: 0" Comment [JW4]: Feels like we need the paragraph break here to highlight this turn.