We all know what happens when we are going camping with the family over the upcoming weekend, Smokey the Bear appears all over our television screens to remind us to be cautious. Whether or not we pay attention to this ad doesn't matter much when our small camp fire bursts into a raging inferno that spreads faster than the thought of Smokey the Bear appearing at your side to say "I told you so." How Smokey dishes out these consequences is not as clear as his original message which leaves imagination to fill in the gaps.
Shown above is a twisted version of a Smokey the Bear ad. This may have come from the mind of some paranoid teenager that accidentally started a fire once, or it comes from the mind of an ad artist trying to appeal to the emotions of a viewer. Two major emotions can truly be deriven from the ad itself, the first of which can be noted as sympathy. The viewer may see this as an equivalent punishment due to the forest being Smokey's home. This would probably be the typical reaction if Smokey were not put into a violent twist of a character. The sympathetic emotion comes from Smokey's original character, the caring one. With the twist of credibility, noting the viewer's original take on Smokey's image, the emotion coming from the ad is a vengeful one. A once sympathetic viewer now see's Smokey as a type of mercenary. He no longer asks politely but instead decides to take matters into his own hands. With the cigar lit and gasoline container in hand, Smokey now walks a way with a more content state of mind when he would normally walk away in disappointment from a burning forest. Although the ad is slightly humorous, it speaks with a sense of reality while appealing to the emotions (pathos) of the reader and the credibility (ethos) of Smokey the Bear.
This is CJ Perkins and I approve this publishing.
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