Friday, February 22, 2013

Wind-up Key Equals Depression


So there is currently an ad playing online, at least – possibly on television as well, but I don’t know – for a depression drug.  A drug you take to assist with your depression, I mean.  Can’t quite think of the brand name of the drug, although it begins with P and has a Q in it somewhere.  But the drug itself is desvenlafexine.

In any case, it is an animation, with the protagonist being a woman in a drab colored dress and sandals, with a large wind-up key in her back.  She is a toy, in fact, a doll with stiff and jointed limbs and sort of stylized jerkiness in movements.  She bends stiffly forward from the waist with her arms hanging straight down, and shuffles in tiny little steps, looking at the ground.  This represents her life in her depressed state. 

She then progresses through her interaction with the doctor and others in her life, and, after taking desvenlafexine, finally joins in the shopping trips, and make-up wearing, and yoga classes that her friends are all experiencing.  They are all stiff and jointed dolls as well – the doctor included.

But she is the only one with the wind-up key in her back.  It persists, as well, throughout her depression, and improvement.  And no one else has one. 

So what does it represent?  Is it her condition, her depression?  And if so, why?   Depression is not what motivates her – not what keeps her going – not the impelling force in her life.  I have seen ads wherein the depression sticks around throughout treatment, which is supposed to let us know that this treatment is not going to “cure” the depression sufferer – just going to make their lives easier and more normal.  But in this case, I think they chose a ridiculously wrong article to represent the depression (if indeed they did) – a wind-up key?  Stupid!  It should have been something like an umbrella, that she could have folded up and carried, but that no longer kept the sunlight off her head.  And if they didn’t choose this key to represent something, then they are even more stupid, since no one else has one, and this is the only thing that she has that they don’t.   Bugs me.

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