The HomeFront Society, a watchdog group tackling social issues in Canada, made a couple of rather realistic Public Service Announcements addressing domestic violence. Unfortunately, they will not be aired by Canadian Broadcasters, because they are deemed too graphic by Canada’s broadcasting authority:
“Many people dismiss abusive behaviours in their homes as normal and do not recognize that assaultive actions are still criminal actions even when they occur in intimate relationships. Criminal behaviour would not be tolerated in a public place and should not be tolerated in the home.” Phil Copithorne, Ogilvy’s Creative Director said that “there is no comfortable way to bring this message to air. It is an uncomfortable topic that most want to ignore. To get the message across an accurate and truthful depiction of violence was required.”
Ogilvy, by the way, is the ad firm that created the PSAs for HomeFront.
I have seen the PSAs. In fact, you can view the first one and second one here.
Warning: these ads ARE graphic.
However, indecent? I don’t think so. What is indecent is that this same scenario, involving real people and not actors, goes on in countless homes every day, both in Canada and the US. And I have to agree with HomeFront’s approach to this. People must be shown how incredibly horrifying such actions are to get the breadth of how serious this problem is.
The ads definitely would not have made it past the censors in the US either, and that’s a real shame. In and of themselves, the content – save for an expletive or two that could easily be bleeped out – wouldn’t fit the definition of indecent material, but it would still be witheld from broadcast, for the sole reason that we as a society are simply too uncomfortable to address the problem of domestic violence frankly and truthfully.