There is a cartoon on banning of cokepepsi in US campus (by Drew Sheneman of New jersey. Visit http://www.cagle.com/news/SodaBanned/4.asp). A move that needs appreciation and support. The school (and college authorities) in India too need to be concerned and be more responsible to its students. The State should pass laws on making campus healthier. Also concern need be raised on the socio-environmental cost of these exploitative products and youngsters need be made aware of the huge cost involved. Many campuses in US like Michigan have already banned these products. There is growing awareness on this issue (please visit http://www.indiaresource.org/news/2005/1028.html for more). The youth of India needs a movement for chasing these products from campuses, particularly from schools. There is also an ethical concern too, as to why these exploitative and harmful products are being projected as associated with health and energy by using sportspeople or scenes suggesting youthful energy. Wherein we all know it has nothing to with any of these. The lawn tennis sensation says in an ad “bas pyas bujaye yaar”. This kid need be told that people prefer water and that too is taken away from them. It is turning out to be some kind of a harsh joke. Despite the fact that these people are sucking up water for this exploitative product and causing untold misery the Government does nothing and a bottled carbonated drink still cost a pittance. Ideally this product should be classified as luxury product and heavily taxed. Socio-environmental cost is too high for a product which is mainly a style statement for some irresponsible.
As far as I know an ad. is meant to make us aware about the product they want to sell. Agreeing that it would be a “boring” way to “attract” the customers they need some innovative means to influence the viewers. But that doesn’t mean they fabricate a lie. There is a matter of ethics here. What they are suggesting is not what the product affects. CokePepsi is no health drink, on the contrary it causes disease. But the lifestyle these ads suggest is that of “action”- directing it to youth. Its no wonder that “action heroes” and sports people are preferred. There is fabrication of lie happening here. Affirming things not true. This culture of fabrication is what gave them incentive to invade Iraq for non existent WMDs. This culture of fabricating lies is the reason why thousands of people died and millions are suffering. This culture blinded the “audience” in US to see the wrong. What we see everyday in our TV in the name of selling products (and entertainment) is seeping in a dangerous space for accepting and tolerating lies. We know it is untrue- the images they show, suggesting the product represents, but we tolerate it. This is where the senses are assaulted and subsequently blunted into accepting unreal, the fake. Next it is replaced by blatant lies regarding the "other". And when you are in richer societies it is about changing channels or more importantly “what can I gain out of this” (also seen as “competence”). There seems to be race going on for maximum lick.
This culture of fabrication is not confined to CokePepsi sellers; they share these with fundamentalists who are into making people’s life miserable in the name of religion. Take the recent case of Hindu bigots in US and their attempt to present a sanitized view of India’s (hindu) past. Wherein the truth is that some heinous crime were committed in the name of religion. Sometime back I was reading an essay by V.S.Naipaul (Our Universal Civilization) these lines I thought were very significant (in context to Islamic fundamentalism)…the faith abolished the past. And when past was abolished more than idea of history suffered. Human behavior and ideals of good behavior could suffer. He further writes…..to posses the faith was to posses the only truth; and possession of this truth set many things on its head. The time before coming of the faith was to be judged in one way; what came after the faith was to be judged in another. The faith altered values, ideas of good behavior, human judgments….