Scroll down for a beautifully diverse Commercial Madness set with suggested tasks and activities.
In 2019, I blogged about striving to be more inclusive during the Noël Commercial Madness. A colleague pointed out that the whole commercial madness season was centering on Christmas, a holiday not everyone celebrates. So how can you be inclusive if you are centering on Christmas?
Good point. As someone who did not celebrate Christmas growing up, I don’t want Commercial Madness centering on Christmas. It want it to center on heartwarming or comical stories. For example, the Amazon commercial focuses on perseverance and community support during the pandemic, while the Allegro commercial focuses on an elderly person learning English in order to communicate with his grand daughter. However, Commercial Madness certainly has Christmas as an omnipresent backdrop. Not every student will see themselves in this backdrop. So, this comment pushed me to think even further (we are all on a journey).
I started anonymously polling my students, asking them what end of year celebration they celebrate and how they would feel if I were to use Christmas/Holiday commercials to tell stories. If just one of my students answers “I would feel excluded”, I will not run any Commercial Madness:
Personally, what bothers me more with Commercial Madness is that it tends to only feature white body-abled cis heterosexual characters. That is because it heavily relies on French ads, which have a long way to go in terms of representation. That’s the reason why I recommended dropping French ads and seeking American or British ads that are definitely more diverse.
For Commercial Madness, I have handpicked 14 commercials that represent the beautiful diversity of our world, including one Hanukkah and one Diwali commercial (Thank you Genna Kass for mining these two!).
I am sharing my set here together with some suggested tasks & activities. Some of these activities come from the amazingly creative Dustin Williamson. This list is by no mean perfect, nor does it represent everyone, but it strives to provide more mirrors, windows, and sliding doors for all my students.
Happy Commercial Madness season!
image credit: screenshot from Amazon 2020 The Show Must Go On
Merci Cécile. En train de chercher un mouchoir après avoir regardé cette “pub”.
Merci pour l’inspiration et bonnes fêtes de fin d’année!
Isabelle
Effectivement, Amazon a cartonné !!
Cécile, Thank you for this post! I did go to TPT and purchased the 2020 Noël Pubs for $6.00. There is one commercial in your blog post I really like – the one where the grandfather is learning English. Will you have some activities for that one? If so, I’d love to see them and use them with my students. Merci! Nina Sarroub-Boyd ________________________________
Yes, I am working on that one and will update the document as soon as possible.
Thank you for sharing all these resources and ideas, Cécile. I am just wondering if you are aware of the inappropriate language in the Allegro commercial.
[…] is the story of the H&M commercial “A magical holiday“, which is part of my commercial madness. If you teach French, feel free to use if you need a break. I will record a bunch more during the […]
I am very interested in the “Parlez-vous Anglais,” but was shocked at what he says to the duck! I need to figure out how to edit that part out….Thoughts?
Double check my document. I have a clean version there. Enjoy!
Oops! I replied before reading all the comments! Sorry! I’ll look for the clean version! Milles mercis!
Never mind! I found a “clean” version. I appreciate all of your work!
This is wonderful! Thanks so very much for sharing. Vous êtes merveilleuse!