I’m afraid we’re a long way away from this idea. When that perfect day comes, there will be no more prejudice, violence, or crime. I can dream, can’t I?
“I look to a time when brotherhood needs no publicity; to a time when a brotherhood award would be as ridiculous as an award for getting up each morning.” — Daniel D. Mich
Not really sex because sexual abuse is about power, not sex. Facebook has been skittish about such matters as breast-feeding and mastectomies, not allowing pictures about them. On the other hand, posts, pictures, and jokes about sexual abuse and rape have been just fine. That has changed—not due to a newly grown corporate conscience but to women’s groups who knew how to fight this use of violence against women as entertainment. They went to Facebook‘s advertisers and complained. Advertisers put on the pressure, and now Facebook has enacted a new policy. That is, if you choose to post something that is cruel or insensitive, you must honestly identify who you are. This ensures your free speech while filtering out such “witticisms” as the picture (I won’t describe it) with the caption “This is why Indian girls get raped.”
Putting on my cynic’s hat, though, I can see a bunch of ways around this. For example, most of us know someone who signed up under a false name, and Facebook isn’t wise to it. Friends know who those people are—the friends that he plays to in his posts. No problem, then, giving his “true” identity and posting all the garbage he wants.
But this IS a step in the right direction. I’ll go online, find the Facebook posting about this, and punch “Like,” just to let the corporation know we’re out here watching them.
“Hit, smash…buy!” I ran across a program like the funniest Super Bowl ads, called “Funniest Commercials of the Year,” as voted on by the public. I thought I’d take a peek. There were 40 ads. 19 involved destruction, crashing, hurting or being hurt, and other violent behavior. Three more showed mean tricks being played on people. Two others depicted people going overboard–going nuts, basically. (We won’t count the bathroom humor of two of them.) That’s more than half. Obviously, most people–or at least those who vote on these things–think that violence is not only acceptable but funny. They laugh at it around their kids, thus passing the attitude onto the next generation.
Odd thing is, I bet these are the same people who are appalled by murders, riots, muggings, and such, and they may even lecture their kids about fighting and bullying, wondering where on Earth they would have learned such actions.
Okay. Enough on this subject. I’ll climb off my soapbox.
If I don’t watch The Game I miss the ads. Actually, I tune into the yearly show “Super Bowl’s Greatest Commercials,” aired a week before the game, to see what I missed. The ads are funny, sexy, thought-provoking, timely, expensive, and disturbingly violent.
It’s the attitude that “violence sells” that bothers me. So many ads feature people getting hurt or hurting someone else on purpose–designed to make us laugh. I don’t happen to think that’s funny.
This year’s Greatest Top 10 Ads of All Time were encouraging, though. Yes, there were the Three Stooges type humor in some. However, here were the top four: #4 Bridgestone tires (saving a whale), #3 Victoria’s Secret (suggestive but not overboard–for them), #2 Coke (Mean Joe Green–kid teaching adult a lesson in humility and generosity), and #1 Budweiser (horse/dog friendship and cooperation leads to success).
I have no idea what Sunday will bring between bouts of grown men fighting over a bit of pigskin. As for me, I’ll spend the day looking for Bridgestone tire sales, slyly placing the Victoria’ Secret weekly ad near my husband’s chair, drinking a bunch of Cokes, then topping it off with a Bud or two. The game? Oh, yeah, that. Maybe I’ll catch the half-time show.
