Pantene Commercial Metaphors

            

            

Pantene’s four-minute long commercial is rich with metaphors and meaning.  The deaf girl’s broken violin, the tattered old street performer, and the butterfly free from its cocoon all stand for more than their literal properties.  The violin was the deaf girl’s pride and joy; it represents her passion, her personality, and her life struggles.  When the group of rough-housers takes her instrument from her hands and smashes it on the ground, the girl feels as if her very life is being smashed along with it.  We see that she manages to fix up her shattered violin by the time of the music show; the tape holding it together represents the overall life struggles the girl has had to endure being a deaf musician and having been seen as an object of envy by her peers.

            

           Another metaphor is the old man who inspires the girl to continue her dreams as a violinist.  The man partly acts as a father figure and partly as a teacher.  He is the glimmer of hope for the girl’s problems; the man communicates that she doesn’t have to feel any lesser than her peers just because of her disability.  He says that music is a visible thing – interestingly he then tells the girl to close her eyes.  As soon as she does we get a glimpse into the “field” featured at the end of the commercial.  This can mean that music isn’t all about what you hear; it’s what you feel and how you evoke emotion in people.  Because the girl was deaf and dealt with so many hardships, that in turn made her music even better.  The old man was in a sense the “gateway” into her “field”, casting the character in a somewhat religious light.

            

          One of the most glaring metaphors in the extended advertisement is the blossoming butterfly.  The butterfly emerges from its cocoon during the deaf girl’s performance at the music contest, accentuating how liberated the girl feels at this climactic moment; to have overcome the torment of her peers, to have overcome the stress of playing in front of a large audience, and to have overcome her hearing disability is a huge stepping stone in her life. This one moment is her rite of passage into adulthood.   Her mind by the end of the mini-movie is as free as the butterfly that flies around in the field.  Also, the butterfly represents maturity in that now the girl has taken the street performer’s advice and has embraced the fact that she is not like ‘others.’