Swallowing Silence: A Psychological Critique of Lucky Me! “The Most Disturbing Dinner” Commercial
deskvalor
Mar 26
5 min read
By: Jamilla Alincastre
Introduction
Lucky Me!’s 2014 commercial, “The Most Disturbing Dinner”, by Publicis JimenezBasic, was created in line with Kainang Pamilya Mahalaga Day. As part of its advocacy for promoting shared family meals, Monde Nissin Corporation (MNC) launched Lucky Me!’s "FAMeal Day” campaign and released the commercial to emphasize the importance of shared meals in strengthening family bonds and the role of parents at the dining table. The commercial showed how Filipinos incorporate lectures into family meals, negatively impacting the atmosphere. The commercial depicted a typical Filipino household where parents use mealtime as an opportunity to lecture and criticize their children, turning what should have been a way to strengthen family connection into a stressful experience, which, in return, affects a child’s social skills (Utter et al., 2018). The harsh act during meals portrays an authoritarian parenting style, characterized by strict discipline, high expectations, punishments, and limited warmth or open dialogue.
Through a psychological approach, the commercial can be analyzed to explore the concepts of authoritarian parenting style and mealtime lectures and their effect on one’s social well-being. The commercial serves as an eye-opener to the viewers, specifically parents, by highlighting how mealtime lectures, often perceived as guidance, can create a tense atmosphere that negatively affects a child's emotional well-being and social development.
Body
The commercial starts with a family sitting around the dinner table. The mother brings up her son’s late return the previous night, causing tension. The father, expressing his anger, raises his voice. As he continues, the table extends, symbolizing the growing strain and distance in the relationship between the son and his parents. The son remains quiet and emotionless throughout the conversation, not saying a single word. The table extends as the father continues to speak until it reaches their neighbors, where whispers can be heard, the son can be seen looking at the neighbors, indicating uneasiness, discomfort, and shame. A statistic then appeared, stating that 3 out of 4 teens often don’t want to eat with their family. The commercial ends with the mother holding the father’s hands, implicitly telling him to calm down. In response, the father calms down and hands his son his meal, while gently bringing up his son’s late return the other day, and asks him to tell more about it, indicating open communication.
The commercial’s portrayal of a Filipino family dinner presents how parenting styles and mealtime lectures shape a child’s behavior. The father’s raised voice and one-way communication reflect the strict discipline of authoritarian parenting, where a lack of open communication and aggressiveness affects emotional connection (Guarnotta, 2023). The son’s quiet, expressionless reaction illustrates the psychological impact of this parenting style, leading to emotional detachment and suppressed communication. (Nathania et al., 2022)
The visual symbolism, particularly the extending dinner table, shows the growing distance in the relationship between parents and their children. The muted color tones and dim lighting contribute to an atmosphere of tension, highlighting the discomfort felt by the son.
Critical Analysis
The atmosphere shifts when the father begins lecturing his son by shouting and criticizing him, leaving no room for the son’s explanation. The neutral setting becomes tense. The child’s silence and emotionless face suggest an underlying fear or discomfort, reflecting authoritarian parenting traits. Authoritarian parenting is a strict, controlling approach to parenting, demanding obedience but lacking sympathy. Often associated with strict discipline and a lack of open communication (Cherry, 2025). Filipino parents follow authoritarian attitudes, rating authoritarian attitudes higher relative to other countries, and progressive and modern child-rearing attitudes lower (Bornstein et al., 2011; Alampay and Jocson 2011). The child’s unease and lack of eye contact as the table extends show humiliation and a lack of self-esteem. Symbolizing how mealtime lectures extend beyond home, exposing children to social judgment and reinforcing feelings of inadequacy. Erikson’s stages of development suggest that adolescents struggle with self-perception (Orenstein, 2022). Instead of developing self-perception, the lecture instills shame, increasing low self-esteem and social withdrawal.
The commercial effectively portrays its themes by showcasing how a toxic yet normalized Filipino family culture. However, it is important to recognize that authoritarian parenting is not entirely negative. In most Filipino households, this parenting style is seen as a form of concern, ensuring children’s respect, obedience, and strong moral values (Alampay & Jocson, 2011). Additionally, the use of cinematography, such as dim lighting, silences, and the focus on the child’s expressions, conveys the emotional weight of the interactions effectively. However, a particular scene where the dinner table extends to the neighbors is accompanied by whispers that are not heard, viewers may struggle to understand whether the neighbors are talking casually or expressing judgment, which weakens the intended impact of the scene. The Limited Capacity Model of Motivated Mediated Message Processing suggests that our cognitive system has limited resources for processing information. If these resources are disturbed by unclear speech, less attention is available to understanding the advertisement's content (Rodero & Potter, 2021).
The culture of mealtime lectures promotes distance and strain between the parent and child, represented in the commercial by the extending table as a metaphor for the situation. In the commercial, the father is seen lecturing his son. Rather than defending himself, he remains silent while his father proceeds to lecture him harshly. The response can be a manifestation of learned helplessness, a concept developed by psychologists Martin Seligman and Steven Maier, wherein individuals, after repeated exposure to uncontrollable stressors, lead to passive behavior, low self-esteem, and difficulty in exerting effort. This can manifest in school settings, where students may be reluctant to share their opinions, ask questions, or engage in critical thinking due to fear of authority figures. (Myers, 2021)
Conclusion
The commercial highlights the negative effects of lectures during mealtimes and the authoritarian parenting style, emphasizing that the practice can strain parent and child relationships, and serves as a reminder for parents to foster a more supportive and communicative environment. The commercial effectively highlights how mealtime lectures, a deeply ingrained norm in Filipino households, create a tense atmosphere that negatively impacts a child's social development. However, in a particular scene where there are inaudible whispers, viewers may struggle to understand the context of the scene, weakening the message of the advertisement. The commercial showed that, while lectures are traditionally perceived as a means of guidance, they may instead instill fear, inhibit open communication, and strain parent-child relationships (Walters & Hildebrand, 2019). While mealtime lectures and authoritarian parenting are common in Filipino households, it is important to recognize that their prevalence does not justify their validity and should not be continued, as they have been shown to negatively impact one’s social behavior (Alampay, 2014).
Reference List
Alampay, L. P. (2014). Parenting in the Philippines. Academia.edu.
American Academy of Pediatrics. (2021). Parenting matters: Supporting parents of children ages 0-8. National Center for Biotechnology Information. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK568743/
Chao, R. K. (1994). Beyond parental control and authoritarian parenting style: Understanding Chinese through the cultural notion of training. Child Development. https://doi.org/10.2307/1131308
Frontiers in Psychology. (2019). Do not sound like an announcer: The emphasis strategy in commercials.
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