Being Crippled Is The Worst Punishment

[trouble]

Oh my gosh, you guys! This advertisement is totally! the best example of "disability = punishment!" I've seen in an ad in forever! We should totally write MADD and thank them for this awesome video!





Description:

The video is a bit grainy, probably meant to invoke "home movie". It opens with tinkly piano music of sadness and woe. A male singer croons: Together.....

The video opens showing a young man sitting on a bench, reading a book. He's labelled "Your Best Friend".

The Singer croons: We're meant to be....

The young man looks up! There's a woman! She's walking up to him, obviously excited to see him. She's labelled "Your girlfriend."

They kiss!

The camera pans back to show this scene as viewed through a hospital window. The couple - your best friend and your girlfriend - walk off together hand in hand.

The singer croons: Together! Forever!

The camera continues to pan back to show the back of someone sitting in an electric wheelchair, staring out the window. The hospital room is obviously very bleak. This person is labelled "You".

The screen goes black, and then: "You have a lot to lose. MADD: Mothers Against Drunk Driving."

That's right, folks: Don't drink and drive because if you do you'll become a scary scary cripple and your girlfriend will leave you for your best friend and you will die alone and unloved!

Cripples: Not Getting Any (unless it's at the UK tax-payer's expense).

[Of course it's a terrible idea to drink and drive. But I've seen hundreds of anti-drunk driving ads, and they really can send the same message without implying 'Don't drink & drive because cripples don't get no love'. It can be done!]

Comments

[laceblade]

Oh my GOD.

[trouble]

Isn't it the best? I love it. I want to teach a whole class around representations of disability in the media with this as my focal point. "Don't be a cripple! Cripples die alone!"

[invisionary]

I don't suppose the fact that statistically the drunk driver is less likely to be injured/killed when they wreck compared to if they hit someone? So yeah, victim blaming on top of it all.

[trouble]

Oh, I didn't know that bit.

[plazmah]

Oh my god... that's horrible.

[trouble]

Disability = losing your girlfriend. I love it. *gags*

[jackandahat]

My first response was "Well someone had shitty taste in girlfriends/best friends". Clearly, the moral isn't "don't drink and drive" it's "Don't date cheating women and don't hang out with skeezy girlfriend-stealers"!

(Edited for spelling and because my initial word choice might have been a wee bit sexist, which wasn't the intent.)

[trouble]

I know, right? Why would you want friends who would treat you so shittily as that?

(Yeah, I read your original comment more as what the ad is saying, not what you thought.)

[jackandahat]

Exactly! If she'll cheat on you and he'll steal your girlfriend, you're better off without them.

(Yeah - that was what I meant, but I realised it could be read differently, so better safe than sorry.)

[laughingrat]

Holy crap, seriously?! That is just a whole lot of FAIL.

[trouble]

Disability As Punishment is one of my "favourite" tropes!

[laughingrat]

It's really, really far-reaching, too. It's so ubiquitous it was actually shocking when I finally noticed how prevalent it is.

[dingsi]

... holy crap indeed O_O

[trouble]

I so want to do a whole series of guest lectures someplace about representations of disability in the media, and I want to do one just about this ad. It's so terrible it's like they went to Disability Stereotypes Are Us to pick it up.

[dingsi]

Seriously. And there's... it's hard to explain, but it feels so sexist on top of it. Like... OMG disability turns you into a sad wimp and you won't be able to score, because those nasty selfish b*tches won't care for you, the cripple, anymore! That's the extra tone I get from this. Or am I misinterpreting?

[trouble]

No, although I suspect the target audience is "men aged 18 to 25", so I think that's also on purpose. (Which doesn't make it okay!)

[dingsi]

No, although I suspect the target audience is "men aged 18 to 25"

*headdesk* ... of course.

[meloukhia]

Uhm, wow. WTF. MADD has run extremely questionable ad campaigns before, but this one is quite a new low for them.

There are plenty of other angles to take in a 'don't drink and drive' campaign that would not only not be ableist as all fuck, but also more effective at communicating the actual point.

[trouble]

Isn't the most important reason not to drink and drive that people may no longer find you attractive and you'll die alone and unloved?

[staranise]

HOLY SHIT.

[trouble]

DON'T DRINK & DRIVE OR YOU WILL BECOME A CRIPPLE. It's awesome.

[staranise]

CRIPPLES CAN'T HAVE SEX.

OR THEY SAY THEY CAN, BUT I BET IT'S REALLY UNSATISFYING.

BECAUSE THEY'RE CRIPPLES.

[st_aurafina]

Eee, that's very not right. There are ways to educate, but that's not one.

[trouble]

Yeah, I've seen some really good ads about drunk driving. This isn't one of them.

[polemista]

Argh, what an awful message, and tacky on top of it. Way to reach the target audience of young adults. Not.

Loved your little snark at the British tabloids, btw.

[trouble]

That whole Thing is just mind-blowing in its fear-mongering.

[amadi]

My mouth is literally hanging open with the awful and the fail and the what the shit and the no they didn't and the utter disbelief.

[(Anonymous)]

レースのまーめいどのドレスでもいい？

[(Anonymous)]

だったら、いっそのこと、プリンセスライン？

[urocyon]

Wow. Just, wow. I can't think of a response that does the video justice right now, what with the brain-numbing horribleness and all.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

You have a lot to lose. Particularly that girlfriend who is so insensitive that she not only dumps you after your injury, but she schedules dates outside your hospital window. Wouldn't want to lose her!

I liked the ads where the teens in the car all turned into skeletons when the driver turned the key.

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

I know, right? And your best friend doesn't even come up! He just sits there and reads outside your window.

The ones that always stuck with me were the ones they played in Edmonton with local celebs in them. The one that I never ever forget is the one where the father was drunk-driving with his son in his car, and all the panic and horror of the hospital, and the mother coming in to the hospital and screaming "I could have picked him up! I could have picked him up!" Seriously, her voice still gives me nightmares.

[firynze.livejournal.com]

Wow. That is...awful. Simply awful, and I want to hit someone with my cane now.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

I haven't even brought myself to watch the video itself, but just the description is enough to induce CAPSLOCK RAGE. WHY do people keep doing this. WHY WHY WHY.

[furikku.livejournal.com]

All I can think is, "Wow, what shitty friends this guy has."

That and, watching the vid, I'm reminded of the couple I see in my parents' neighbourhood: he's in the same kind of wheelchair and I see them out on a stroll a lot, and it's always very :3 because they look quite happy all the time.

So basically what I am saying is, this seems more like an ad warning about shitty friends than about drunk driving.

[niena.livejournal.com]

so... it's a PSA against terrible significant others and awful friends?

That and

[(Anonymous)]

the ads assume that "we" are all hetero white males. plus, wouldn't he be "her" girlfriend now, not "yours"?

[(Anonymous)]

That's appalling.

James
(of the BrokenID)

[imadra-blue.livejournal.com]

What the... are you kidding me? D: You'd think MADD, many of whom might be the mothers of disabled children, might be more sensitive!