I love New York – the ads from the 80s worked on me and I am one of the millions who flocked here seeking a life of fame, fortune, liberalism, and twenty-five cent Times Square peep shows. But thanks to the weird fact that New York keeps electing Rebublican mayors, neither the politics nor the peep shows are as liberal as I had hoped. Luckily, Mayor Bloomberg, he of the Masshole heritage, is never one to bore us. Whether he’s firing city employees for playing solitaire on their computer, commending the head of Con Edison for allowing Queens to lose electricity for a mere week for no reason, or just talking with that funny, “pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd” accent, he is a real trip! He brought us 311, the non-emergency phone number for the city of New York, for when you just wanna find stuff out and are willing to be on hold for a long time. In theory, 311 is a fine idea but if it’s for non-emergencies, please explain subway ads like this:
First of all, domestic abuse is a pretty giant emergency so I would think that this would get more urgency than just “Call us! We might help! Also, today is alternate side of the street parking, we wouldn’t want to ticket your Honda Odyssey!” If you are bleeding letters out your nose, that is also a pretty huge deal. Actually, that’s not very funny, this is a serious topic. Which is why I can’t believe they thought that a battered woman with letters-as-blood coming out her nose was the right visual. Letters-as-boogers I can get on board with, perhaps a Mucinex ad (which I do love) – Mr. Mucus lives in your lungs and is an old timey piece of phlegm with a porkpie hat and suspenders and comes out your nose in big green globs of goo! – that is a less severe, more runny-nose appropriate ad, I think. But there is a thing called TONE, you know, that thing that makes innocent comments on IM get taken the wrong way, and methinks this isn’t the right tone for this.
Did the ad grab me? Sure, I read it, after all. But do I want to read horrible statistics about battered women in the form of blood dripping out a nose? AhhhNO. If I want to laugh at domestic abuse, I’ll watch Julia Roberts’ performance in Sleeping with the Enemy. However, the severity of this issue warrants more than a statistic-spewing stream of blood. Someone get that woman a tissue and tell her to apply some pressure, stat!
Posted by lizblack 
Posted by Glennis 