Education Entertainment

In our last class we discussed entertainment education and were shown a couple of TV clips and asked if we considered them to be health education. Among them were Sex and the City, Simpsons, and a one made for specific target audience (marines and binge drinking). Before this class, when someone mentioned educational entertainment, I immediately thought of PBS type material..... not "Sex and the City" and "Simpsons". While I got the general idea that they were emphasizing better lifestyles in these TV clips, I was also in the right frame of mind to look for health messages. Im not so sure I would focus or pick up on this if I was at home vegging in front of the TV.
So how effective are health messages that are used or integrated in entertainment media? If Carrie ( i think) the main character in Sex in the City is rejected by a "crush" because he will not date a smoker, should the main motivation to quit be because of this and not the health risks?
If you look at advertisements, a lot of the motivators are gearing toward more "superficial" benefits in order to reach the audience. For example, to promote sunscreen use to prevent skin cancer, a lot of the adds focus on reducing aging and "fine lines" etc. and it seems to be working. Maybe a more superficial and entertaining method like this is the way to go in order to promote public health, but will the messages sink in and be taken seriously?




Someone in the class commented that the Simpsons were not a valid source to be viewed as educational in our public health field.