I liked the Elmo part, but while I believe Maher rightfully brings up
our national overuse of prescription drugs to treat every mental or emotional malady whether needed or not, he seems to give a free pass to the corporate media's powerful role in shaping, influencing and promoting that social dynamic for profit's sake.
I believe this may be because of Maher's more libertarian tendencies, but his commentary is a good argument for either a ban on prescription drug advertising or at the very least major reform.
Commercials most definitely have psychological power and can shape thought.
It used to not be legal to advertise prescription drugs on television until 1985, but then Big Pharma inserted itself between the doctor and patient with commercial propaganda.
The inevitable tortured logic of that is, if a corporation can insert itself between a patient and a doctor's best council, why can't the government do the same, as in Dobbs vs Jackson?
So while I believe Maher is correct in general on the issue, he's shooting at the wrong target, Big Pharma is more to blame than the victims that have been heavily influenced at best or brainwashed at worst.
Television didn't spend hundreds of millions of dollars studying human psychology over the 20th century for nothing.
https://appliedpsychologydegree.usc.edu/blog/thinking-vs-feeling-the-psychology-of-advertising
Thanks for the thread Rhiannon