Anti-Violence Campaign, Comments

Members:

1996 Television 32% Report A Problem

A series of comments from people speaking to the camera about gay people and AIDS. One man asks, "Who cares?" A young woman offers, "AIDS, it's their fault."

"So what, some fags get beat up," says an average guy. "You're such a fag," snarls a Kevin Bacon looking man. The comments start overlapping, interspersed with angry, slow motion yelling of epithets by others.

The closing text says, "Hate. It's not human."

While this is a debatable tagline, the shocking language of the public service announcement surely got some attention.

Company

Anti-Violence Campaign

Brand

Anti-Violence Campaign

Industry

National Politics

Media Outlet

Television

Country

United States

Region

North America, US Regional,

Agency

Anti-Violence Campaign in-house

AdRespect Themes

Consciousness Raising

Walking Fine Line/Mixed Reception

Homophobia/Transphobia

Problematic Language

Violence

User Comments

Fyndra

This commercial is condemning such speech, not condoning them. I don't understand why it's being called negative.

Camp Crusader

The ad is low budget and badly executed, but it's obvious that the intention is to provide a message against hate speech. The technical elements used are clearly meant to make the hateful characters seem monstrous and inhuman. It's just ineffective because everyone knows that hate IS human, that's why it's a problem. This ad is badly executed and does not address the real problems, but it's intention is to be gay-positive. It shouldn't be slammed by the Commercial Closet just for being poor on talent and budget.

Sam

I am a super progressive liberal gay man but I strongly disagree with quite a few of these negative ratings. This being the one I am most opposed to.
I understand that people say it sounds like the commercial is saying to hate homosexuals and that homosexuality is unhuman, but thats very obviously not the message when you combine the visuals before.

Sandy

The tagline can be construed as very negative. Imagine if the first few words before the tag line were, "go ahead and..." It sounds almost like an order. besides that, the language and over all feeling of the dialog in the whole thing is just inappropriate.

Jeffery

For one, the tagline can be construed as very negative. Imagine if the first few words before the tag line were "go ahead and..." It then sounds almost like an order. Besides that, I feel the language and over all feeling of the dialog is just inappropriate.

Roberta

Oh dear. I actually had to watch this one a couple of times to figure out what it was really trying to say - and therein lies the rub - I think they probably had the best of intentions but it's so hopelessly muddled and unclear that there's no real resolution. These are obviously "humans" and they, well, hate. But then what? It's so muddled it comes off as just ugly and a bit off.

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Anti-Violence Campaign, Comments

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