Today we watched "How to Get Ahead in Advertising" (1989). Please post a comment discussing whether you think the film had a happy ending — not just for the characters, but with regard to the bigger picture that the film addresses. What do you think the filmmakers wanted us to come away with? What did all that crazy boil action mean?
The assigned reading is a chapter from the book Breakaway Brands. There is a PDF for you to download in the left sidebar (along with all the other class documents), or you can download it from the Advertising Educational Foundation website here.
Be ready for a quiz next week!
Also, I will be in L.A. at the Screenwriting Expo for several days, so it is possible that I will not have all of the scripts graded by next Wednesday. However, I have delivered them to Skye via the BECA office, so we are off and running! I want to congratulate all of you on your good work, and I'm looking forward to reading lots of excellent scripts.
If you'd like to get a head start on the next section, Persuasive Messages, here's what to do: watch a lot of TV commercials (there are lots of them up on YouTube, and the Media Access Center has DVDs of advertising awards programs that you can watch in the library). Ask yourself: What is the story being told? This applies not only to the "plot" of the commercial, but the basic promise of all advertising and persuasive speech: the product or idea or action being promoted will somehow change you or change your life for the better. What kind of person does advertising promise to make you, or to affirm that you already are? What transformation is implied?
See you all next week!
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21 comments:
I don't think the story had a happy ending because his wife ended up divorcing because of his obsession with the boil. In the beginning of the movie he was absolutely disgusted by the boil. By the end of the movie he was trying to market the boil as something that was beautiful. Throughout the whole movie he thought that the boil was talking to him when it was not and how it was driving him crazy.
What a sad ending! What's terrible is that guys like Dennis survive in our capitalist world where men like the real Dennis (the later boil) are shut out and tampled upon. Women in the world like Dennis' wife have to leave a country, system, family, or marrige (in this case) to simply be free of the bondage. Her bondage and our bondage is the worlds out look on people as dollars signs and not people. I believe the boil was mean to represent the bubbling undercurrent of filth in our social system that can't pe oppressed and seems to always reapear.
What a sad ending! What's terrible is that guys like Dennis survive in our capitalist world where men like the real Dennis (the later boil) are shut out and tampled upon. Women in the world like Dennis' wife have to leave a country, system, family, or marrige (in this case) to simply be free of the bondage. Her bondage and our bondage is the worlds out look on people as dollars signs and not people. I believe the boil was mean to represent the bubbling undercurrent of filth in our social system that can't pe oppressed and seems to always reapear.
I left that comment, sorry I said I was anonymous.
I had mixed feelings about the film's ending. Eventhough the boil has taken over and will be running the man's life from then on, his wife still escapes from the boil's tyranny. I guess for the time the film may have had a happy ending. It was near the end of communism in Russia which was an issue in the film as well. However, I think for today's audiences this would have been a sad ending.
I think that the movies ending is not really a happy ending because he ends up unhappy. What kind of happy ending is that? In our society today many people will do anything just to get ahead. The boil that forms on his neck is the reality that we see but are hesitant to accept. I think there is greed found in everyone and the boil that eventually took over Dennis was the type of greed that ruined a once happy lifestyle.
Overall, I think the movie has a sad ending, obviously, because his wife divorces him. I think the only way it could be a happy ending is because the man has an epiphany about his work. Throughout the beginning of the movie he takes pride in duping the public into buying products he markets. He ends up losing that motivation. He finds new motivation in what he does by the end. He instead wants to give the public the best possible product for their money. He may no longer find disdain in what he does, but it was at the cost of his wife.
I am joining the band wagon. The movie left us with a sad ending. I hate to admit it, but we live in money hungry superficial world and the movie demonstrates it. At the beginning of the movie he had a supportive wife with a job that had not quite consumed him. By the end his wife is gone and he's buried himself in his job. Even if this movie was about any other occupation, that ending would still be a sad one. Love and friendship beats a well paying job that makes your miserable any day (at least for me). Now he will be married to his job, and hating life. The love of money killed his shot of any genuine happiness. The boil is what he wants but may not be what he needs. He wants to get the boil advertisement done with and the personality in the boil will get him that. By the end when he succeeded on the ad, the boil wanted the wife back. But it was too late. Either that or the whole boil idea went right over my head.
This film had a sad ending because he has lost his job and his wife, and ultimately, his sanity. So it was not a happy ending in that sense. However, the end of the movie was the first time we had seen him truely happy. His character at the beginning of the movie, before the boil was introduced, would not have seen it as a good ending because things were going pretty well for him. However, his character during the middle of the movie who was suffering greatly would have see it as a good ending because his physical suffering seemed to have gone away. But from my view, the whole thing was disturbing and because the character went from having a great job and and wife, to losing it all, I would have to say that it was a sad ending. But again, it was all very disturbing
At the end of the story we see the "boil Bagley" to appear on top of a hill, screaming outloud his success over the "real Bagley" and how wonderful the life is. As from this scene, it may seem that he movie had a happy ending, I believe the movie is satire to what popular culture has come down to and how the society's decisions and so called happiness run. I beleieve the movie has a sad ending. The boil wins. The boil here is the lies that belong to the materialistic world that enforces the act of pretending over and over again. It is the monster that the capitalistic world created. It is the fierce desire to crush everybody and everything that surround it, in the name of selling and so winning bare of any goodwill.Overall, we see a perfect example of one's enormous dilemma between what the society makes of us and what our heart tells tells us. The movie tells us the ills of our consumer society and how one copes or can't cope with his conscious.
In my opinion the movie had a sad ending. Capitalism won, Dennis got God-complex (in the last scene he's standing with his back to the camera, arms stretched out--symbolizing "Christ the Redeemer," the Jesus statue in Rio de Janeiro). The good Dennis lost and evil one won. The fact that the wife left him is the uplifting part of the ending.
AYSE
I thinks the ending was sad for just about everyone except the boil personality who was exstatic with the reborn vigor he had for the ad biz. His marriage was ruined, his friends were disgusted by him, but by god he was going to sell the shit out of that boil cream! In conclusion the ending blew for everyone but the crazy guy, including us.
The end of the movie was only happy for the wife because she divorced Dennis and got away from his craziness. The boil represents the capitalist side of our society and how it can make one mad. I do not feel that Dennis was happy at the ending of the movie even though he thought he was.He got so caught up in the advertising business and trying to make a "buck" that he lost all of his morals and sanity, plus his wife. Now, that is not a happy person.
The end of the movie was only happy for the wife because she divorced Dennis and got away from his craziness. The boil represents the capitalist side of our society and how it can make one mad. I do not feel that Dennis was happy at the ending of the movie even though he thought he was.He got so caught up in the advertising business and trying to make a "buck" that he lost all of his morals and sanity, plus his wife. Now, that is not a happy person.
I thought it was a sad ending because the evil side of the main character took over the good side and promised to continue destroying the world through advertising, basically. The film outlines the evils of advertising and while the good side of the main character was a little radical he was aware of what his old self was doing to society. It was also sad because his wife and him split up and it was sort of a downer all around.
A happy ending is one where all the characters are content with their lives. I personally, do not think that this was a happy ending. I was not pleased with the way he was acting towards his wife. His poor wife left him because he was absolutely obsessed with the boil. The boil took over his life.
I think it's obvious that this story did not have a happy ending. The boil consumed his life, which led to his wife leaving him. I don't see anything positive about that. It's amazing how one can be so consumed by work and by money that they go completely mad no matter how much support their loved ones give to them. I was really hoping Dennis would change his act towards the end.
I guess the moral of the story is don't get into advertising! No i'm just kidding!
I do not feel that this fim had a happy ending at all. I think that it was really sad the way that his wife left him becuase of his obsetion with the boil. I do see how that might be commected with the wa that advertising is always attacking their audiences.
The movie did have a sad ending, but the movie was basically sad, having his alter ego morph into himself. His wife was willing to work with him when he had his boil, but not when the boil became a "different person". I think the boil represents this other side of him, one who is full of greed and one who is high-strung. The boil represents everything bad about people, everything that people want to do or say but would never get away with it.
Focusing on the bigger picture, I do feel the film had a "happy" ending. Although not in the sense of a traditional storytelling "happy ending," the conclusion proves to be in accord with the title of the film and Dennis' initial ambition, to get ahead in advertising. Dennis is plagued by the boil, his greasy, smooth-talking alter ego, and ultimately completely sells out to the festering wound. In allowing the boil to dominate, however, Dennis figures everything out and gets ahead in advertising, providing the deliciously satirical happy ending.
My feeling is that the ending is bittersweet. I think that it is a sad ending but ultimately I also think that is a realistic one. I am happy that the wife left Dennis. It is a dark ending but at least it wasn't a cookie cutter "Hollywood" ending. Dennis ultimately sells out to himself and his darker nature. It made me reflect on people and how some people sell themselves out for money or success.
I really feel this was a sad ending. In fact, it actually was kind of depressing. Here is a guy who's life was perfect. He had a wonderful wife, a great job, makes lots of money, and has a nice car. He was set until he basically had a nervous break down and then lost it all. He is now stuck in his demented world in which he has even less conscience of his actions and furthers a consumer society. I am not sure how I could see this as a happy unless the only goal was to get ahead in advertising. It goes to show who you have to be to get far in that industry.
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