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Monday, February 22, 2010

TV When Road Safety Advertising Goes Wrong

Posted by Charles Mudede on Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 8:26 AM

This ad was made for Sussex Safer Roads Partnership...

This is an example of one ideology (road safety) being extended to another, clearly political ideology (the family). Because the two are in essence independent (road safety does not need the context of a family to generate its meaning, and the same is true the other way around), we must conclude that their space of mutuality has been made possible by a larger and totalizing ideology. It is here we can see why a hermeneutics of totalization (so out of fashion these days) is not a vain or impractical program. Without imaging the operations, mechanisms, system of a larger whole, the politics of this ad would not be so visible or readable.

Comments (15) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

Jesus, you're in rare form this morning.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty

on February 22, 2010 at 8:47 AM

The ad is effective, and I don't know what the hell Charles is talking about. Buckle up if you want to survive auto accidents. Your family can't do it for you, and they'd miss you terribly if you died. That's what the ad says to me.

Posted by DowntownTaylor

on February 22, 2010 at 9:06 AM

Do you get paid by the incomprehensible word, Chuck?

Posted by burgin22

on February 22, 2010 at 9:11 AM

Agree with @1 and @2. "Even if you can't be bothered to buckle up for your own safety, do it for your family's sake" is the message I got.

Posted by this guy I know in Spokane on February 22, 2010 at 9:12 AM

or you could just put your seat belt on.

Posted by gnr8r

on February 22, 2010 at 9:16 AM

Yes. Shame on them for not having *every possible family* in the ad. How dare they not include a gay couple without a child, a gay couple with a child, a biracial gay couple without a child, a biracial gay couple with a child, lesbian couple without a child, a lesbian couple with a child, a gay couple each with one child each from previous marriage, a triad with children, a quad with children, a five person...oh you get the freaking point.

It's advertising, you idiot. It's a PSA for road safety. Seat belts save lives and they're encouraging people to use seat belts. What is your problem?!

Posted by Jesi on February 22, 2010 at 9:22 AM

What a great ad.

Posted by Quintus Slide on February 22, 2010 at 9:37 AM

Er, Jesi, what? Where did you get any of that? Are you saying that Charles' "totalizing ideology" is hyper-PC diversity? That doesn't seem, to me, to be what he's talking about. Charles isn't saying anything negative about road safety or family. He's saying that the link between the two in this ad is done by means of an unnamed, over-arcing philosophy. Mind you, language like he uses is used by theorists as a jargon which, like all jargons, excludes non-specialists, so who knows what hidden meanings or allusions he may be making?

Posted by Tremodian on February 22, 2010 at 10:01 AM

@3

Christ, you lazy fucker, you're on a computer. There's no such thing as an incomprehensible word when you can copy-paste it into your address bar and get a definition in under two seconds.

I mean, Charles is pompous, yeah, but try to keep up, here.

Posted by balderdash

on February 22, 2010 at 10:10 AM

Jesus, what a great fucking ad.

@9 - I understand all of those words and more. Problem is, Charles likes to use them to show us he knows them, not because they're necessarily the words that get his point across the best. I'm pretty sure that was 3's point, too.

I did especially appreciate how Charles took a moment to explain to us what "independent" means, though. That was swell.

What a clown.

Posted by lopes on February 22, 2010 at 10:35 AM

I'm reminded of this Onion article that I just re-read the other day.

"Grad Student Deconstructs Take-Out Menu"

Posted by laterite on February 22, 2010 at 10:52 AM

If a beaver chews down a road safety in the woods, and no one is present to hear it fall, does it still "generate meaning"?

Why does my ideology itch when a storm is coming?

Posted by CATSPAW666 on February 22, 2010 at 11:10 AM

I thought it was a very effective ad. Gave me chills.

And this is just one PSA... there's other PSAs about the same issue—buckling up—aimed at other groups. There's one that looks like a scene from Final Destination aimed at teenagers. An individual ad cannot be aimed at all possible audiences or it loses its efficacy for all groups. Good advertising is necessarily narrowly focused.

Or am I missing your point, Charles?

Posted by Mary P. Traverse