viz. - PSA

Bodies vs. Behaviors: The Problems with Childhood Obesity Campaigns

ladysquires — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:24:40 +0000

(Photo Credit: Billboard, Georgia Childrens Health Alliance, via Body Impolitic)

No one could argue that efforts to promote healthy eating and exercise among school children, such as Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign, aren't well-intentioned. But as Paul Campos argues in this recent Daily Beast article, too often anti-obesity campaigns focused on children stigmatize the very individuals they are supposedly trying to help. The image above, a billboard produced by the Georgia Childrens Health Alliance, is a case in point. These scowling children with warning labels slapped across their stomachs seem to have crossed the line from being victims of genetics, environment, lack of opportunities for healthy exertion, and inavailability of affordable healthy meal choices to, I guess, being perpetrators. Something has clearly gone wrong here. Seriously, how would you like to be one of the kids in these pictures with your body held up as a symbol of a national crisis?

Far too often, anti-obesity campaigns in general tend to focus on simply changing bodies rather than changing behaviors, pointing to a simplified understanding of the relationship between body size and health, stigmatizing bodies rather than promoting positive behaviors and improving access to exercise and healthy food. Though the intended message may be, "We are here to help you be healthier and happier by teaching you how to practice self-care," it comes across as, "seriously, just quit being so fat already." The effect is to encourage unhealthy weight loss strategies and further ostracize fat kids. As Campos argue

Michelle Obama spoke movingly last week at a press conference about how parents agonize over the pain bullies inflict on children. Maybe she should talk to Casey Heynes about that. Heynes is a 16-year-old Australian fat kid who according to his father has been bullied for years by classmates about his weight. A few days ago, some of them decided to record their latest attack on a camera phone.
The first lady would, no doubt, be horrified by the suggestion that her Let’s Move campaign, which is dedicated to trying to create an America without any fat kids, is itself a particularly invidious form of bullying. But practically speaking, that’s exactly what it is. The campaign is in effect arguing that the way to stop the bullying of fat kids is to get rid of fat kids.

No humane person would argue that the answer to keeping gay and lesbian teens from getting bullied is to get rid of gay and lesbian kids, though I acknowledge that the analogy isn't perfect. Yet childhood obesity campaigns tend to problematically suggest that in order to address the problem of fat kids being bullied and ostracized, we need to change the fat kids, but somehow we have yet to master a rhetoric that would promote healthy behaviors and tolerance at the same time.

When It Can't Be Clever - Domestic Violence PSAs (part two)

Cate Blouke — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 05:26:43 +0000

In many of the ads, the abuse tends to occur off camera, subjecting the viewer/auditor to the sounds of violence without the spectacle (this French ad, for example, and this British one). These ads tend to be aimed at the "innocent bystanders," those who are surrounded by abuse but who do nothing to stop it. While I've been fortunate enough to be spared such an experience, I imagine that the commercials cause the target audience to re-live the experience and reflect on their own passivity.

Image Credit: Screenshot from Pond's Ad on YouTube

Other ads depict the effects of abuse without showing the causes. These tend to be aimed at women who may be the victims of abuse. This Pond's commercial (the lotion company) shows images of battered women next to a quoted excuse such as, in the above image, "Fell off the bed." This ad for the Family Justice Center shows us a wedding in which the woman vows to "make excuses when you humiliate me in public" and "to blame myself when you hit me."

As a woman, I bristle at the way these ads seem to implicate the victim for not speaking up. They strike me as more accusatory than supportive, and one wonders if shame is really an effective means to reach victims of domestic violence. Perhaps. In the Jezebel post I cited last week, the author explains how most people involved in abusive relationships don't actually see themselves as villains or victims.

That issue is quite poignantly addressed by this British advertisement directed at teenagers:

Image Credit: UK Home Office via YouTube

H/T again to Rachel

This is one of the few ads I found that targets the perpetrators of abuse specifically, and it's interesting that the target audience is young men. It asks the teenage boy to look at himself and his actions from an outside perspective - arguing that if he could "only see" himself, he wouldn't be behaving that way.

When adult abusers are targeted, children are often invoked, using the argument that children learn from their parents. In this ad, the violence is acted out by children, though we only see their feet in oversized (parental) shoes. This poignant Australian ad is aimed at a variety of parental misbehaviors, pairing adults with children who mimic their actions.

I wish I had something profound to end with, but wading back through these commercials has just left me disheartened. While the David Arquette ad that I talked about last week may not have been serious enough, it also wasn't as depressing. And so I wonder if it's actually possible to find ways to raise awareness without making people feel lousy?

When Humor Hurts - Domestic Violence PSAs (part one)

Cate Blouke — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 03:13:36 +0000

Image credit: The OPCC via YouTube

H/T to Rachel for suggesting the topic sending me the clip

Although Halloween is behind us, and we've packed up the glam make-up and eaten all the goodies, I'd like to call your attention to an interesting use of bunny suits I recently came across. Or, perhaps "interesting" isn't quite the right word... inappropriate, insincere, ineffectual... these seem more apt. While this ridiculous domestic violence PSA has already been addressed by Irin Carmon over on Jezebel, I think there are some more fundamental issues we can tackle from a rhetorical standpoint. Ultimately, the commercial leaves me with questions about when humor actually hits the mark and when it just goes horribly wrong.

Using humor to "get your attention," the two segments of the commercial don't line up. Bunny suits and feigned infidelity, while possibly funny (though I found it rather inane), have nothing to do with the realities of domestic violence that the second half claims to concern itself with. The attention grabber, by essentially admitting to its own frivolity, undermines the potential for taking the second part seriously. So does using David Arquette to deliver the message. As pop culture spokesperson, he's woefully impossible to take seriously, despite the attempt to reclaim authority at the beginning of the commercial.

While I'm a huge proponent of using humor to make a point, here, all it does is undermine the message it attempts to deliver. In the following Australian PSA, however, the humor really hits home...

Image Credit: YouTube

Whether you laughed or cringed or both when the husband handed over the baseball bat, this commercial hits its mark. The "humor" correlates directly to its message, and makes it even more affective. Aimed not at those perpetrating violence, but people who stand by and do nothing, laughter, regardless of motivation, implicates the viewer in the scene of violence we hear behind the door. Laughing at the problem is tantamount to ignoring it, or, like the next door neighbor, handing over the bat.

Whereas the audience for the Arquette commercial is undefined at best, this commercial makes it clear that domestic violence is a concern for everyone, not just the abusers and abused. The Jezebel post I cited above includes a French commercial that is similarly aimed at "the people around abusers," and it raises interesting questions about audience which I'll pick up on in my post next week.

"That's so gay."

kathrynjeanhamilton — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:51:18 +0000

A recent series of public service announcements sponsored in part by the Ad Council sends the message that using the word "gay" as an insult is, well, insulting.

The video I've posted here features Hillary Duff, but it's just one of three you can see on television (presumably, though I haven't) and at the "Think Before You Speak" campaign's website. What was interesting to me is that in two of the ads, including the one I posted here, only part of the argument is stated explicitly, but what is perhaps the most political aspect of it is left unstated.

In this ad, for instance, Hillary Duff overhears two teenage girls in a tony boutique discussing a blouse. "Do you like this top?" one asks. "That's so gay," her friend answers. Soon after, Hillary Duff steps in and attempts to educate the pair (and here I'm paraphrasing) by telling them that they shouldn't use the word "gay" when what they mean is "bad." The two shoppers stare at the actor, puzzled, and she explains with this: "What if every time somebody wanted to say something was bad, they said, 'that's so girl wearing a skirt as a top.'" The shopper, who is of course wearing a shirt that looks oddly like a skirt, is abashed.

What's the lesson here? It seems to me that the ad, while well-intentioned, equates the category of "girl wearing a skirt as a top" with "gay." Hillary Duff, herself very trendily attired, counters the girl's ignorance with catty commentary about her clothing choice.

While a second ad on the site pretty much replicates this argument, a voice-over at the end of the third ad (which, again, features pretty much the same plot line) injects a necessary corollary to the dramatization. "Imagine if who you are were used as an insult," it demands. I think this gesture toward the general is necessary to make the political point the PSA's seem to be aiming for. Without it the dramatizations are too narrow, too idiosyncratic, too petty. There's a difference between being a fashion victim and being gay. Wearing a skirt as a shirt isn't who the girl is.