Stumblng Tumblr sent along this PSA from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, along with this comment:
I am confident that the animal-protection video to which I've linked in this
post...will astonish you.
Alex in Spain sent us some links to this safer sex ad campaign. I think the image below is particularly interesting. In the U.S. anyway, we rarely see safer sex principles being applied to oral sex. Also, I much prefer the musical instrument metaphor to the gun metaphor.
Thanks Alex!
More safer sex campaigns: Milwaukee, New York, the United Kingdom, and France and Germany.
GWEN ADDS: I want to point out Oxydo is a sunglasses company. I think these images are advertisements for their sunglasses, not a safe-sex campaign. Here are two more posters:
Notice that in all of these, the woman is a faceless body to have sex with, whereas the guy is presumably supposed to be cool because he's wearing sunglasses. I'm not sure it's an AIDS awareness campaign at all--I think it's actually an ad campaign for Oxydo, and "protected" sex means wearing their sunglasses. They add the AIDS ribbon at the bottom to make a connection to anti-AIDS campaigns. See Copyranter's discussion here. Did anyone else notice the musical score in the first image is for "The Magic Flute"?
So there you go, folks--polysemy in action. People read images differently, and not always as the creator intended. This might be a unique AIDS-awareness campaign, or it might just be an ad that makes a superficial nod to AIDS awareness.
In the late 1930s, the movie Reefer Madness dramatized the effects of marijuana abuse (watch the entire video here). In the 1970s, it was ridiculed as hysteria and propaganda.
In light of this, and without trivializing meth addiction (which I understand to be devastating... but where does my information come from?), what do we think of these anti-meth PSAs from the Montana Meth Project? (You can also find television commercials there to go with these print ads.)
Hat tip to copyranter for bringing my attention to this ad campaign.
Miguel in Barcelona sent us this government-sponsored poster aimed at promoting egalitarian relationships. He translates the text as:
The love has to be free
Free of machismo
Free of fights
Free of jealousy
Thanks to Miguel for sending us our first image from Spain!
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This image (found here) is from a Milwaukee United Way anti-teen pregnancy ad series. There are additional examples here.
An anonymous commenter on a previous post told me about this:
...in milwaukee, there is an ad on some of the busses with a computer animated picture of a pregnant adolescent boy with words similar to "it should be just as disturbing if it were a girl" and i found it really offensive. it's interesting how it relates to thomas beattie and those previous ads about teen pregnancy...
These two images were part of the campaign to raise awareness about breast cancer at my college this year. I think it is fascinating that, even when spreading a message about women's health, the images include sexualization and objectification (on the right) and a woman posed to look insecure, vulnerable, and maybe slightly scared (on the left).
Christine M. sent in this photo of a poster she "took in Zambia in May 2006 while I was visiting the compound of a child sponsoring organization called Children International. It speaks for itself in a country that has a high rate of HIV infection. The very fact that such a poster is needed is chilling."
Is the child at the top supposed to be Asian? I can't tell.
Thanks, Chris!
Heather from HeatherShow, who uploaded this gem, says:
This infamously botched Public Service Announcement from 1969 confused an entire generation of children into thinking that they too can be attractive, successful, and happy, if only they could get their hands on VD... whatever it is... Sign me up! I want some too!
How do we feel about this campaign, by Keep A Child Alive, to encourage people to donate money to Africa on the basis that we are all African? (Apparently we only care about ourselves, so if we suggest that Africa is ourselves, then we'll donate?)
Dp Americans, many of whom are white people with privilege based in race, class, and nation, get to claim Africa as theirs? Do white people now get to have blackness too? Is this insulting? Some people think so. Here is a larger version of the poster with Gwyneth Paltrow (scroll down for a response):
I borrowed this image from Blackademic.
The images below are fake ransom notes designed to encourage parents to get their children into treatment for autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, asperger syndrome, and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (click image to enlarge). They were commissioned by the New York University Child Study Center, but quickly attracted enough outrage that the campaign was abandoned (see a summary of the controversy at Mental Illness Watch). They are interesting to me as a sociologist because of the way they construct mental illness (like a kidnapper who steals your child... so the child you have is not your "real" child), pharmaceuticals (the only way to get your real child back), and parenting (you are a bad parent if you don't do what the experts tell you). It's fascinating the way they use threats to "help" ("ignore this and your kid will pay,"this is only the beginning," and "It's up to you now").
Text: We have your son. We will make sure he will not be able to care for himself or interact socially as long as he lives. This is only the beginning. -Autism
Text: We have your daughter. We are making her wash her hands until they are raw, every day. This is only the beginning. -OCD
Text: We have your son. We are destroying his ability for social interaction and driving him into a life of complete isolation. It's up to you now. -Asperger Syndrome
Text: We are in possession of your son. We are making him squirm and fidget until he is a detriment to himself and those around him. Ignore this and your kid will pay. -ADHD
The 30-second (or so) videos below have been interspersed with MTV's regular programming as part of Black History Month. MTV got Cornel West to be their superstar academic and expert on the Black American experience. The videos serve as the occasion for some interesting questions:
First, how do we evaluate the use of Black musicians, actors, and personalities by MTV? Is "representation" enough? Or does contemporary representation look uncomfortably like the representation of the past? (If you haven't seen it, watch Spike Lee's Bamboozled.)
Second, what does it mean that Cornel West signed on with MTV with what is, in effect, a mutual endorsement? Do we approve of Cornel West using his significant influence and importance in this way? Is this good from a reformist perspective? Problematic from a radical perspective? Did he "sell out"?
Third, how effective are these spots? I know little about the audience of MTV, but I imagine there are a lot of people who do not know who Cornel West is and are not inclined to offer him immediate respect. Cornel is idiosyncratic. Does your average MTV viewer see a gap-toothed, afro-wearing guy with odd mannerisms called "Professor" (which, we know, could mean anything) as authoritative? Or a buffoon?
Further, what do we think of the spots themselves? Is their content helpful? Do they teach us anything? Do we like what they teach us? Or is it just more empty lip-service to Black Americans?
Watch and tell us what you think (click here for a link to all the clips):
The image below is the cover of a comic book designed to teach adults about birth control (it seems to have been published in 1956 and again in 1962). Find it all online here.
Found here via copyranter.
New York City Department of Health thinks we should all get some... and they don't mean condoms, if you know what I mean (wink, wink).
In case you don't believe me, check out the commercial.
Found at copyranter.
...for a good cause, of course.
Part of this campaign.
A comparison of these with some of the other more and less objectifying PSAs might be an interesting class exercise.
We are on a PSA kick at Sociological Images lately (see our posts on anti-statutory rape and anti-teen sex PSAs)!
Here are the latest: anti-child abuse ads. There appears to be some confusion as to whether they are actually from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in the UK (which is the attribution on the ads themselves). In any case, they do appear to have been used.
These, below, however, are on their website and, I think, in the same theme:
These anti-statutory rape PSAs were made by advertising agency Serve for the United Way of Milwaukee. They created enough of a controversy that they were pulled (see an article at Salon).
In response to the controversy, the advertising agency put a little over 2 minutes of focus group footage on youtube:
I find these posters to be gut-wrenchingly horrible. They are designed to scare teenagers into taking precautions against pregnancy by demonizing teenagers who get (someone) pregnant. The way in which teens are portrayed in these images suggests that the organization, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, doesn't care about teenagers, only in controlling their behavior.
Each poster is followed by its text.
"I had sex so my boyfriend wouldn't REJECT me. Now, I have a baby. And no boyfriends."
"Now that I'm home with a baby, NOBODY calls me anymore."
"All it took was one PRICK to get my girlfriend pregnant. At least that's what her friends say."
"Condoms are CHEAP. If we'd used one, I wouldn't have to tell my parents I'm pregnant."
I want to be out with my friends. Instead, I'm changing DIRTY diapers at home."
A friend sent me this safer-sex PSA from France.
It's especially interesting if you compare it to this safer-sex PSA from Germany.
