Driving into town on the weekend, we went past a large roadside billboard carrying a poster for an organisation called Smokefree (presumably an anti-smoking charity or some such) The ad consisted of a large, prominent head-and-shoulders picture of a child, apparently pierced through the cheek by a large, vicious-looking fishing hook, with tension pulling the cheek out in what looked like quite a painful way.
My two children (aged 8 and 10) were sickened and shocked almost to tears by the image - they were still talking about it in a worried way at bedtime, despite my assurances that it was a fake image which had been made to make some kind of analogy.
Now, I’m sure no actual children were hooked in the mouth, but that’s hardly the point - if the intention was to make some point about cigarettes, it failed - I don’t think there was any accompanying text, or if there was, none of us noticed it, but anyway, it’s a disturbing and unnecessarily graphic image - I don’t think my kids should have been confronted by it in a public space.
So I wrote a letter of complaint to the Advertising Standards Agency. Am I being oversensitive?
Agh. What happened? - I unchecked the ‘automatically parse links’ thing. Please could someone report that post for a mod to break the link (unless they consider it unnecessary)
I saw a similar poster featuring an adult, near the station I use every day. It replaced the heart disease (tight chest) ad they’d had up there previously. Personally I found both of them distasteful and the new one is plain disturbing.
I haven’t looked at the pic, but my cheeks are hurting just from the description. Someone seems to have been going to the “Benetton school of shocky advertising”.
I agree with you that that’s not an image I’d like to explain to my kids on a billboard. OTOH, it’s pretty likely that it’s real, not a faked image. I don’t know if your kids would be soothed by learning about Jim Rose’s Circus or not, but there are dozens of performers who do piercings and hang, dangle, or swing heavy objects from them. It doesn’t hurt anymore than pulling your lip with your finger, as I’m sure they’ve done making faces to one another.
But yeah, nasty image, inappropriate for children’s viewing without parental permission. If it was in a movie, it would undoubtedly garner it at the very least a PG-13 rating. If you want to email me with the email or snail mail address for Advertising Standards and the location of your billboard, I’d be happy to send a letter along as well. (Don’t post it in this thread, that’s be too close to asking Dopers for a letter writing campaign, which the mods frown on.)
My vote is that fussy busybodies are people who make fusses over the potential for some hypothetical child to be harmed. You had actual children who were harmed, so you are taking steps as a responsible parent and concerned citizen to minimize future harm to your children and others like them.
Having said that, I almost put harmed in scare quotes, because I don’t believe that your children have been seriously harmed, and I don’t want to reinforce any fears you have that your children may have sustained serious damage. That’s not to minimize your objections to the image, which I feel are valid, just to reassure you that seeing an upsetting image will not scar your children for life.
Interesting, because my reaction to reading your first instance of the word ‘harmed’ was to think "well, I wouldn’t say harmed…’
I don’t consider my kids to have been permanently affected by it, it was just an unnecessarily unpleasant episode - just something that didn’t need to happen and shouldn’t need to be repeated.
Not even on the news? I mean, news coverage of an accident. Or hearing of a kid falling through the ice. Or seeing a building in flames and hearing about people jumping from the windows. Even cartoons can be violent and bizarre.
In a way, I think that’s more acceptable than the ad I complained about - if you say “smoking is bad, and here’s a person who genuinely has been affected by it”, that, within reason, is fine; same as if you say “land mines are bad, and here are some amputee children who were harmed by them”. Not the same as saying “X is bad, here’s a gratuitous image of something else that happens to be shocking, just to make you listen to us.”
There are limits to what the news will show and say at times when children are likely to be watching. And of course you can simply not watch it if you’re really easily upset. I’m talking about a twelve-foot-tall billboard that is there all the time - there was no reasonable way to avoid it.
Well, one thing you have to keep in mind is that the vast majority are probably not in the least bit shocked or scared by it. There will always be extremes with regard to reactions. I would think a simple explanation about advertising and photoshopping and piercing would alleviate their fears. They may be too young to get the symbolism on their own, but with a little explanation, I’m sure they’ll adjust. How often do they have to see it?
The bolded part above sounds like a WAG to me. How do you know? There are other ways to advertise besides using a fish hook through a child’s mouth; obviously shock was the desired effect. Maybe the OP’s kids won’t have permanent damage from this, but that doesn’t mean the creators of the ad didn’t do something pretty sleazy, and counter-productive.
I see nothing wrong whatsoever with writing that letter. It’s your opinion, you have the right to express it, and it’s good for the Advertising Standards Agency to hear it. I would probably write a letter directly to the organization who sponsored the ad, as well (or copy them on the letter you sent to the ASA). You certainly did LESS harm by writing that letter than the ad did to your kids. (Although I agree with you there was probably no permanent harm, I doubt anyone will lose any sleep over your letter, as your kids did after seeing the ad.)
