Critical Thinking

Posted by Frances on November 15, 2007 · Leave a Comment

There are many things we take for granted without considering the implications of their assumptions. I enjoyed our En12 class today where the students examined certain items as a review of their critical thinking module last semester. Guess what? I even ended up learning from them. Good job, R49! I’m posting images of the ad, website, and birth certificate presented along with students’ ideas to share with my readers.

This is a poster of Axe for a French-speaking market. It reads, “the man with the scent of love.” As usual, Axe portrays women as mindless freaks. An interesting point raised by a student is that the man might be gay because no straight man would run away from a crowd of women who want him (then again, that assumes that men just want pleasure from women and nothing more). Another said that the ad has an unfair representation of love. “Love is cannot just be bottled up.” Yes, love is reduced to a mere sense reaction.

Then someone brought up his lessons in biology. He said that among animals, scent is an important factor of mating compatibility. It has something to do with the immune systems– gee, I don’t know the gritty of science! Bottomline: this ad actually portrays human beings as animals.