Japan faces a severe senior citizen crisis. In an
interview with NPR,
Shutting Out the Sun author Michael Zielenziger pointed out that by 2020 one in nine Japanese will be over 80. However, with social services inadequately equipped for the rising tide of retirees, the private sector is stepping in. Their strategy seems to be to make the nation so depressed about retiring, they kill themselves before reaching 65. A case in point comes from this
commercial sent in by Mr.K. It is an advertisement, obviously targeted at the elderly, for a drug that treats stiff joints. Before you view it, imagine how an ad for a similar product in your country would play out. I envision a shot of an elderly couple strolling along a beach, holding hands during a beautiful sunset. Then a distinguished grey haired gentleman executes a perfect drive and nonchalantly tosses his club into his bag while his buddy slaps him on the back. In the last shot, a toddler rushes up to his grandmother, who effortlessly lifts him up in the air, to his delight. Then a soothing voiceover would say something like: "Life has so much more to offer. Don't let joint pain stand in your way. Ask your doctor about [Prescription Drug] today."
Now consider some scenes of this Japanese ad:
- Woman kneeling down painfully to scrub her bathtub.
- Woman slowly walking up a flight of stone steps with her groceries.
- Guy hauling a big, heavy cart in a marketplace (caption reads: "That grunt [you make when cleaning your bathtub etc.] is probably your joints screaming [in pain]").
So the main message is, take our drugs so you can spend your retirement doing tedious chores and manual labor. Great. I can hardly wait to be old.
