It makes me sick. There are also images of male victims that are just awful. I wonder what they were thinking? What kind of marketing idea is spoofing domestic violence? Shame
Hi Sara,
I want to react because I'am one of the people responsible for the jealouscomputers campaign. Being a woman myself I don't think violence against women is something hilarious! I'am fiercly against it! In fact the picture with the keyboard marks is made by three women. A female photographer (Margi Geerlinks), the model Nadia and me (Gerdien). Because of the absurdity we didn't feel the link with abuse. I hope you understand and I feel sorry that we offended you.
With kind regards,
Gerdien
Gerdien, thanks so much for commenting. I've been thinking of how to better articulate what bothers me, because I've seen similar spoofs on PSAs that haven't bothered me. I think the central thing that doesn't work about this is that given how ineffective awareness-raising campaigns about domestic violence actually are at combating it*, it comes off as making fun of the campaigns. To a world that wants to ignore domestic violence, the ads can be read as saying that violently jealous computers are equally dangerous and hilarious as violently jealous partners. Spoofing over-the-top and dishonest PSAs about drugs would make more sense, because smoking pot once doesn't actually make you into a raving lunatic. A mock local news report about a crime wave makes more sense because local news is notorious for sensationalizing that sort of thing. Your joke, though, just falls flat in the face of how unfunny it is that domestic violence continues to be a problem.
*Not that I expect PSAs to be especially effective at changing deep-seated problems in society.
You retards its not spoofing domestic violence...the computer is jealous and attacks people. God, no wonder everyone hates feminists these days...
And the fact that they have with males means its obviously not promoting violence agains women. Its a joke! A rat with half a brain could see that.
Whoops. I guess that's what I get for asking for respectful dialog.
BoingBoing itself didn't call it absurd, but rather reported that the art director of the campaign called it absurd. The BoingBoing poster may well agree, or at least not disagree enough to say so in the post, but there is a distinction there.
I also found the campaign disturbing. Gerdien commented, "Because of the absurdity we didn't feel the link with abuse." However, the style of the ads are clearly evocative of a report of abuse ("Heavy bruise on cheekbone"? "Microscopic traces of black plastic were found in the wound"? And of course, there's a bit on the website saying that one picture was taken "five days after a PC keyboard slapped the victim in the face. Marks were still visible ten days later." Such a statement would not sound out of place in a domestic abuse report if "her husband" replaced the words "a PC keyboard.") Using images of real people with fairly realistic-looking injuries makes the ads just that much closer to the reality of similar situations.
By taking the structure of abuse reports and using that structure to "report" a clearly absurd phenomenon, the advertising agency is sending the message that real-life abuse reports are similarly ridiculous. I don't believe the agency is sending this message deliberately, but the message is being sent all the same, and I think this campaign should have been reconsidered and then scrapped.
Hi Gg83 and Sara,
A few remarks:
> the picture of the keyboard marks is not used as an ad in magazines or billboard on the street or whatsoever but is part of the website. > We kind of sense that the title of the Boingboing post, with the word “battered” is an unfortunate word pick in this specific campaign. As it, most commonly refers to and is explicitly used in a context of domestic violence…
Therefore, many a reader (like you!) might associate this campaign in favor of violence, which clearly doesn’t reflect the essence, the absurdity and the soul of the concept. > Gg83: You can give all kind of texts a totally different meaning by changing words! > And Sara...please don't doubt my credibility! My full name is Gerdien Stevense, I'am 42, I have a husband and a daughter, I live in Rotterdam, I love strawberries ...more details on request! ( ;
Bye and cheers!
"Gg83: You can give all kind of texts a totally different meaning by changing words!"
This is absolutely true. However, I think that the overall tone of the sentences in the advertisements, combined with the pictures, still does give an impression of a violence report, whether domestic or otherwise, without changing any words.
I understand that some people find slapstick violence funny, and it's a pretty fundamental aspect of a lot of humor. I generally don't laugh at it, but I certainly can see the appeal. I think that slapstick was what the campaign was aiming for, but I still think that it went too far and came a little too close to depictions of actual violence. Certainly it did for me, and it seems that I'm not the only one.
Gee, not even a whole day before someone comes up with how stupid you are and it's just a joke.
It may have been meant as a joke, something many abusers use to try to excuse their actions, but that hardly matters. Whether it was meant as a joke or not does not make it less immitative of a violent crime report or the least bit funny.
It's nice that Gerdien apologized, but the fact that three women--who purportedly are against domestic violence--does not let them, or Nokia, off the hook. In fact, I think it makes them even more accountable for creating and implementing this ad campaign (i.e., you should know better).
Sara, I think you're correct in pointing out that the campaign taps into the language of PSAs and therefore is problematic. I also think that the title of this site (and the campaign) "jealous computers" is troubling. The use of the word jealousy also seems to present a justification of sorts while making it seem not so serious. Why not characterize the reaction of a computer or person as "pathological" or simply "violent"?
btw, I think it's disingenuous to say "oh, it's just a joke, lighten up" (which is often used to shut up anybody with a feminist perspective, or other perspectives that people dismiss as "politically correct"). If the person who says that is even a little bit introspective or honest, I think they could quickly come up with lots of examples of times when it's inappropriate to make a joke. IMO, if you agree that there are in fact situations where joking is offensive or inappropriate, it's dishonest to use "it's only a joke" as if it's an all purpose excuse. In that case you have to come up with a different reason to disagree with the analysis. And that takes more thought that reflexively saying "lighten up."
Sara, do commercials that have men getting hit in the groin, or prison rape humor, or circumcision humor, etc. bother you this much?
I agree that violence humor should not be something used to promote a product but I disagree with your making it sound like this is only an issue that affects women, or that it is worse when it affects women.
There are at least three commercials on television right now that have a man getting hit in the groin including a State Farm car insurance ad and the trailer for Daddy Day Camp.
I personally can't imagine what ad execs are thinking when they come up with these campaigns.
Ad exec 1: Let's see. What would make a person want to buy our car insurance?
Ad exec 2: I know, I know! How about a man getting hit in the nuts at a baseball game!
Ad exec 1: BRILLIANT! When do we begin the shoot?
My only question is why men don't complain about the demeaning, degrading and emasculating way that pop culture presents men the same way that women rightfully challenge misogyny.
Zeke, I do think there's a distinction between slapstick humor and poking fun at violence that's often ignored or not taken seriously. Jokes about prison rape horrify me, but a football to the groin is a football to the groin, on the same social commentary level as slipping on a banana peel. The ways in which this ad campaign specifically invokes campaigns against domestic violence (jealousy, images of beat-up women, etc) is what freaks me out.
I agree with you on this, Sara. After spending 55 years watching all kinds of domestic violence, people need to take this stuff seriously.
When I looked at the "ads", I thought at first that someone had actually hit the woman with a keyboard! I don't think that's what the folks wanted me to think; but a picture is worth etc.
Thanks for writing this.
Is Moscow treating you right these days? I really would like to meet you someday.
The ad campaign has computers attacking men and women. What bothers me is the general linking together of jealousy and violence. I would rather see them going off in a huff, snarking or whatever. There are many possibilities. Perhaps the makers were aiming for trashy horror film humor? What immediately struck me was that, unless the keyboards are quite different wherever the ad was made (compared to where I am), one cannot get that bruise on the left cheek, but only on the right.
I thought your complaint re: the violent Nokia-promoting images to have some merit, despite my initial feeling that you were just over-reacting to the images of females while ignoring the fact the males were also pictured in exactly the same fashion.
So I clicked on your home page and found a post titled: "The biggest mystery of all: how does he not get beat up wearing a hat like that?"
So my question is: The biggest mystery of all: how does she not see the hypocrisy?
It appears the advocation of violence in a supposedly 'humourous' context is only objectionable when the object of the supposed 'humour' is female?
I'd love to hear your explanation. I can't help wondering if it will include something like "I find what he does offensive therefore ....."
I have to agree that the ad is at best in bad taste. (It is also silly, but that doesn't mean it isn't bad form.) Now our computers react to upset with violence? Wonderful. The wording, if done right, might, I mean only might, have made it just silly.
CJ
St. Philomena, I think I did a pretty good job of explaining above why I think the ad campaign is offensive specific to domestic violence-awareness campaigns. It invokes a common excuse for domestic violence (jealousy) and uses images like those taken of women who've been beaten up by their spouses. Including men doesn't make it less offensive - men are sometimes the victims of domestic violence too (though overwhelmingly it is women who are).
But there's a difference between using slapstick humor and urging people not to take real violence seriously. And I even realize that it's tricky to get it right all the time, which is why I'm not accusing Nokia's advertising department of liking domestic violence. I'm accusing them of sending messages that say that domestic violence is not serious.
I'm not horrified when an anvil falls on the Looney Tunes Coyote, because the violence is an over-the-top, silly, metphorical image that has as much to do with reality as the image of me decking a guy for wearing an ugly, ugly hat.
Issue nicely sidestepped
I understood your reasons for objecting to the Nokia-campaign. Re-iterating them in a more concise form didn't increase my understanding. But thank you anyway for taking the time
I didn't agree 100% but could see that you had a valid point though I felt you might be overstating the danger of such 'humourous' campaigns.
I was referring to your 'humourous' advocation of violence
was it really his hat that caused you to wonder why he does not get beaten-up?
As some above have mentioned, Gerdien Stevense, not BoingBoing, called the ad absurd. For what it's worth I think making unfounded claims about well respected blogs reinforces negative stereotypes of feminists and damages credibility.
What, the common stereotype that feminists sometimes miss the placement of quotation marks? You (and the above commenter) are right that BoingBoing quoted the word. Whoops.
Issue dodged again
or maybe I'm giving you too much credit and you really are that stupid.
so it really was his hat then ?
St. Phil, I was actually addressing another commenter.
Of course I think Mystery is objectionable on multiple levels. And I don't think it's impossible to make a joke that includes violence without diminishing real violence's seriousness. If you want to talk about the ways in which anvil-dropped-on-the-head humor works and the ways it doesn't, that's fine with me. If you just want to call me stupid, I guess that's fine too, but I'm less inclined to carry on the conversation.
well in your 2nd-to-last post to me you said:
"What, the common stereotype that feminists sometimes miss the placement of quotation marks? You (and the above commenter) are right that BoingBoing quoted the word. Whoops."
since I placed a word in quote-marks and since I was the commenter immediately above "Anonymous" I naturally (logically) assumed you were referring to my post while attempting to dodge the issue. Silly me, I'll try and be less logical in future 
I feel you are hair-splitting. You refer to your use of 'humourous' violence as "slap-stick" while claiming to abhor others use of 'humourous' violence because you personally find it offensive and don't feel it is ever homourous to depict violence against women in anything but a highly-offended manner.
Since hair-splitting appears to be the order-of-the-day maybe I can hair-split and claim I never called you stupid - I merely wondered if I were incorrectly assuming that you were intelligent. If however you were terribly offended, then I apologise. It might help if you were more precise when referencing previous commentators, and I less assuming.
Let me spell-it-out for you:
If using violent imagery depicting women is always wrong how is it ok for you to advocate violence, albeit 'humourously', against someone you disagree with (even someone you find as offensive as this character 'Mystery')? Your dismissal of is as mere "slapstick" is no different than someone dismissing your concerns regarding the Nokia campaign as 'The usual humourless complaints of the feminist clique".
If you wish to be taken seriously and not dismissed a "humourless feminist complainer" then maybe a little consistency might be in order?
I find your inconsistency on this matter to be intriguing as despite my clear posts on the issue you still have yet to actually address the issue of hypocrisy and have attempted to veer-off into a discussion of slapstick humour while never actually adressing whether of not yours actually was 'slapstick'. Since it is obvious that you have a great distaste for this 'Mystery' character dismissively waving away my comments by claiming it was an attempt slapstick humour is disingenious (at best)
St. Phil, you're actually putting words in my mouth. I didn't say that any depiction of a female character meeting a violent or painful consequence or end is unacceptable. Otherwise, I'd be working to ban the banana peel in popular culture.
Concern trolling is especially ineffective when you tell people to stop saying things they aren't actually saying.
ah the trusty 'trolling' charge when you can't come up with anything better.
about what I expected really. Anything to avoid the issue. Well done - you're a credit to women everywhere [/sarc]
it appears I was incorrectly assuming that you were intelligent.
...but you're not even addressing what I'm saying. I'm making a distinction between depicting pain and violence in ways that treat real phenomena like they're silly and unserious, and depicting pain and violence in ways that don't do that. Do you think that's impossible? Why?
Sara you've had 3 or four opportunities to address the point I was making - you haven't bothered.
I had hoped for a discussion on attitudes to, and depictions of, violence in general (something I know quite a bit about) and not just the narrow concerns you voiced here but I can see you have no desire to have such a discussion. I don't know about you but I've never had a meaningful discussion where one side refuses to address what the other side is saying.
If you want me to condemn all depictions of violence, cartoonish or no, I'm not going to do it, for the reasons I've gone through several times. Maybe you can give me a good reason to change my mind, but you haven't offered one, or even asked me to. Make your point before you accuse me of avoiding it.
What if this had been a man? Seriously?
How would you have reacted then?
Aran, I don't think I'd have reacted exactly the same way I did - I don't think it would have caught my eye in the same way. But that has a lot to do with the world we live in - it is usually women who are the victims of domestic violence. It is domestic violence which is considered "private" and barfights that are considered a matter for law enforcement. The way that the campaign so closely mirrors a domestic violence awareness ad campaign is pretty unmistakable, even if it uses images that deviate from the stereotypical (ie a dude with red marks on his face), so it is the real manifestation of the problem of domestic violence that ends up being "spoofed." As another commenter was saying above, a small amount of tweaking might have made the campaign work, tweaking that distanced it from a real problem that people laugh at.
and still, you hide the fact that a man with red marks was in the campaign away? That's a disgrace!
WE men are just supposed to act 'cute' are we, when women hit us?
I'm not saying there are as many men being victims of domestic violence as there are women, but this is overly hypocritical(spelling might be wrong.) for me.
And, on another point, why NOT use humour as a weapon against domestic violence? Done properly, it can be extremly effective. It has been done with other things.
And if anyone goes ape on me for being a man I might just be insulted.
Who's hiding anything? Who says it's cool to hit men? How do you laugh away domestic violence?
But the most important question: am I going ape????
Sara, these idiot trolls are never going to be satisfied. You are answering them directly and honestly and without insulting them, but they can't bear to use the same respectful tone.
Ignore them.
They are just trying to frustrate you and get you to react. Stop feeding them.
My initial point, which I quite clearly made in my first two posts was: "was it really his hat that caused you to wonder why he does not get beaten-up?"
you later implied you found "the image of me decking a guy for wearing an ugly, ugly hat" to be humourous.
I again asked you if it were really his hat that caused you to conjure up a mental image of you 'decking' him? a question you ignored.
From what you have written, and from the question you have not answered, I can only conclude (sorry I'm using logical here - stop reading NOW if that offends you) that it is not his hat that truly offends you. It's pretty obvious that, though you may also find his hat offensive, it is his view of women, and their purpose on this planet, that you find most offensive, and not really his hat.
Why is the image of you punching him humourous?
Because you're a woman, punching a guy?
Because you're a woman, punching a guy who's opinions you find offensive?
Because you're a woman, punching a guy who's wearing a silly hat who's opinions you find offensive ?
Because you're a woman using the fact that he is wearing a silly hat as cover for the fact that it's his opinion you find offensive, and not his hat?
Were he to punch you in the face because he finds your opinion to be offensive to him, would that be funny? If not, why not? What does that say about the society we live in? What does it say about you?
Perversely, in a truly equal society his punching you would be just as hilarious (or just as offensive, depending on your viewpoint) as you punching him (for whatever reason).
Do you generally find it hilarious when guy's punch women in the face?
here's a reason to change your mind:
A society that judges violence perpetrated against a person of one sex to be more/less serious than that perpetrated against a person of the opposite sex can never hope to achieve that which you so stridently demand, namely equality between the sexes.
With reference to 'Slapstick' humour - do you know of many instances where the recipient of slap-stick violence was female? Personally I don't, but then I may not be as knowledgable about the world of slapstick violence as you are.
Are you content to live in a society where violence against one sex is often considered to be funny, while violence against the other is not? Is it possible there is a connection between the fact that the sex with the greatest propensity for violence also happens to be the one against which it is commonly considered amusing to use violence?
There is a difference between laughing at someone slipping on a banana skin and laughing at someone receiving a punch in the face.
One is an accident, no real violent act has been perpetrated against them, despite the fact that the consequences could be life-threatening.
The other is an act of pure violence, quite often used for the purpose of domination.
St. Phil, I'm actually interested in the conversation that we could be having. I think that the difference between what's funny and what's offensive when it comes to banana peel-type humor (you can lay them down as a trap, you know) and what's not and how it relates to portrayals of gender and the reality of gender. But like it or not, you're trolling. Your faux-Socratic method of bringing me to the conclusion that you think I'm headed toward is really just taking us around in circles. Quit it, and we won't have to give up.
So, no, I don't think it's hilarious to actually hurt people. I do think that humor that involves people getting hurt (banana peels, anvils, etc.) can work out fine. This is true when it comes to men and women. Ideas (and truths, for that matter) about men's strength compared to women's (ie don't hit a girl) contribute to men more often being the subject of slapstick humor, but I don't find that objectionable. Mystery is in no danger of me assaulting him or laying out a bunch of marbles on his doorstep. Not because he wears a bad hat and not because he dehumanizes women. Both of those things make him a pretty easy target for jokes, though.
Plenty of women *are* in danger at the hands of jealous men.
When I saw Die Hard 4, I must admit I enjoyed the part where Bruce Willis kicked (and killed) the asian woman. This was not because she was a woman, but because she was a BAD woman, similar to being a BAD guy.
There is a double standard out in society, where movies of men being beat up by women are considered hilarious, but the opposite is on the verge of... well, you fill in the last word that fits. Unfitting to say the least.
1 out of 4 women in my homeland has experienced domestic violence. This is a outrageous number, and terrifies me. But it is not as much the problem as a symptom of a far greater problem. Certain men seems to believe that they own their partner. While many women seem to believe this as well, the amount of men must surely be larger, and, also, men tend to get 'physical'. Simply because they are stronger, which of course is sick.
On the humor note, perhaps it was overly bold of me to think you would get my point. All I'm saying is that if a series like, oh I don't know, Simpsons, would make a joke including domestic violence, and for comical effect include a place where a person breaks the 4th wall and says; "I'm sorry, even WE found that tasteless." then we would bring at least some attention to the problem.
This has been done with so many problems (pedophilia and alcohol abuse to name a couple) by South Park, and while it doesn't make you think right away, it does bring attention.
Especially if a bunch of self-righteous hypocryts(sp) would accuse South Park for making fun of something very serious.
Voila! More attention!
Kind of what you're doing with the campaign here. (Without calling you self-righteous hypocrits, of course, this is not sarcasm.)
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