Cartoon Characters (DOG EAR)

Cartoon Characters (DOG EAR)

aw an interesting thing on a walk – I was trudging up 17-92 (a four-lane arterial street with businesses down both sides). Over this all towers a billboard and on this billboard as an ad for emergency room availability. Personally, having had to rely on their emergency room service, I’m mixed on their claims. But it wasn’t the claims that caught my eye – it was the image. A nurse, arms crossed, looking all competent and in charge.

Now look, I’m enough of a realist to know that nurses you see in advertisements are likely from central casting. And I accept this fact. But this nurse was different. This nurse was a computer drawn nurse, like something the Pixar (the Toy Story and Shrek people) would do.

And that’s odd.

What has shifted in our perception of reality when we blindly accept that the nurse who will be caring for us is a make-believe character? Really, her image probably cost more than some starving actresses. So why did the specifically pick this openly-fake image of a caregiver?

Do we now trust CGI characters as much as real characters? Or is it just the crossed-arm image that is so competent and powerful, we don’t care who gives it? I talked to someone who does media for a living and he said that there was likely a focus group and those people decided that they loved/trusted an obviously make-believe character than an actual poser.

If you’re willing to believe that his second-rate Pixar character can save your life, would you say the same thing about Wilma Flintstone? Really, there is no real difference.

The odd things you see when you drop out of your car and walk a mile or two. Curious.

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