The Canadians are rolling out a new series of extremely visceral, graphic workplace-safety PSAs - this is probably the most intense of the lot. It’s extremely effective, mainly by being very disturbing. I’m putting a summary in a spoiler box so you can decide if you want to see this before clicking the link:
A young woman working in a restaurant kitchen tells us that she’s a happy and successful sous-chef, shortly to be married to “a wonderful fiance”. She laments that the marriage won’t actually happen, because she is going to die in a “tragic accident”. Complaining that someone should have cleaned the spilled grease on the floor, the young woman then tries to lift up a large pot of boiling water, slips on the grease, and spills it all over herself. The ad fades out on the sous-chef falling, screaming and writhing in agony while the flesh falls off her face.
Anyway, here’s the link - although there’s no sex, it probably isn’t safe for work (the irony isn’t lost on me), so I’m breaking the link. http://www.youtube.com/ LINK BREAK watch?v=tN2gpRcFKAQ&feature=related
Yup - the thing that really makes it work, even more than the screaming, is that the ad makes you like this character before she dies horribly. She’s pretty, talented and friendly - you can’t not want her to do well.
I’ll tell you what, though - this has made me think differently about boiling water.
Although I must admit, a few of the TV spots have seriously dark humour, like one fatal workplace accident where the victim stands back up with rebar sticking out of his/her body (strangely, I can’t remember the person’s gender) and then bithces everyone out with a litany of workplace safety protocols that have been ignored.
They’ve also had a few installation ads in downtown Toronto. One I saw last year had a window washing platform gone awry. It was set up to look as if workers were pasting the PSA ad to the side of the building on one of those platforms suspended by cables when the “accident” occured. The platform was hanging sideways, with one of the “workers” (a lifesize dummy/mannequin) hanging on for dear life about to fall, while his “partner” mannequin was safely, secured with a safety harness and not about to die. It looked just fake enough that you knew it wasn’t real and didn’t call 911, but real enough to be jarring.
Weirder still, it was a replica of an actual accident that was witnessed from my fiancee’s office building. They were two window washers across from the 44th floor. My fiancee’s co-workers watched helplessly as the guy was dangling on the lopsided platform hanging off the neighbouring building. All they could do was call 911. (IIRC, the guy was rescued).
I guess it was when I was about ten or 12 years old when my mother’s best friend’s daughter, about six years old, somehow spilled a pot of boiling water on her (own) face. I had to go make a visit to the hospital with my mom. The girl was in a room with a large glass window, and her face was nastily scarred. The image haunted me for a long time.
Yes, I’ll certainly be much more careful the next time I’m moving large pots of boiling water in the kitchen of a busy restaurant.
Seriously, though, these ads tend to bug me. I’m home, watching TV, maybe trying to unwind after work with a light comedy or something, and I get smacked with that in during the commercial break? I mean, yeah, it’s an important issue, but can’t I get away from the lecturing for a little while? Especially when it’s an issue that really doesn’t apply to me? I remember there used to be this domestic abuse PSA that played during Conan O’Brian. Little kid in pajamas, sitting on the stairs, listening to his dad beat the shit out his mom. “Please don’t hit me!” SMACK! CRASH! SCREAM! Okay, commercial’s over, now let’s have a sketch about a masturbating bear! Sort of broke the mood, and for what? I know not to beat up my partner. And anyone vicious enough to not understand why you shouldn’t do that isn’t going to have their mind changed by a TV commercial.
I dunno. I feel a bit selfish saying that my viewing enjoyment is more important than the issue behind the PSA, but it still seems unfair to blindside people with stuff like that during a commercial break.
We get stuff like that in the army all the time. Best I ever saw was a triage primer which starts with a crashed truck. The first soldier we see jerks awake, gingerly crawls off the toppled vehicle, and pukes. Then he finds one of his buddies impaled on something, checks his pulse and breathing, says “Damn” and moves on. Always struck me as realistic.
Ooh, ooh, we get to watch traumatizing PSAs in the Air Force too. They had us watch one from Ireland which had a guy in the back seat of a car without a seatbelt during a relatively minor car accident kill both people in the front seat then put his girlfriend in a coma when he started flying around inside the car bouncing off of everyone else (being the sick jerk that I am, I have contemplated running this through a video editing program and dubbing in Pinball sound effects).
There was another one, actually made by the army, with that sappy “How could this happen to meeee?!” song, showing a girl driving along in her car, and a drunk guy driving along in his car, while it cuts to various members of the girl’s family washing the dishes, playing video games, talking on the phone, whatever, and then when the cars collide, the family members get sent flying across the rooms as if they had just been hit by the car. It was mostly traumatizing cause I had that freaking song stuck in my head for a week.
I understand that people training to be aircraft ground crews in the US Air Force get to watch recorded footage of various flightline mishaps (compliments of the US Navy’s policy of video-recording all flight deck operations), including plane crashes, weapons malfunctions on the ground, and unfortunate ground personnel learning why the A-7 Corsair was called the “Flying Purple People Eater” (big low-slung jet intake under the nose of the plane)
Hey, didn’t someone make a PSA which had the Smurf village being carpet bombed?
I saw this for the first time the other day and was horrified. I suppose that’s sort of the desired effect but man, all it did was piss me off. I didn’t think ‘I should learn more about workplace safety’, I thought ‘Holy crap, I hope I never see that crappy commercial ever again.’
I distinctly recall an anti-drunk driving campaign that featured the blood curdling scream of a Mother who lost her child after he was hit by an drunk driver.
That Irish wear a seatbelt in the backseat PSA **Raguleader **is talking about? Made me change my behavior. Someone linked to it here on the Dope, and I fessed up - I never wore my seatbelt in the back seat. I’ve been in the back seat three times since I saw that and buckled up every time, and every time told the rest of the passengers why, and later emailed them the link to the PSA.
I never thought they worked, either. I was wrong, I guess.
I still remember the anti-drunk driving campaign that featured a baby crying in its crib, in obvious fear and distress, for a good minute and a half or so. Very sad and uncomfortable.
On a lighter, but far more gory note is the following spoof german warehouse safety video Fork Lift Klaus . At least, I assume it is a spoof. Link also broken 'cos there are lots of blood spurting effects and people having bits chopped, ripped, or chainsawed off. It’s just over 9 mins long and in german, no subtitles (you really don’t need them).
It plays completely straight until nearly 4 minutes in.