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Grim Reaper (advertisement)
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{{short description|1987 commercial to raise awareness of AIDS in Australia}}- the content below is remote from Wikipedia
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Production
The ad was commissioned by health consultant Bill Bowtell, who was a senior advisor to Federal Minister for Health Neal Blewett. Bowtell led the Australian Federal government's response to the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.WEB,weblink Bill Bowtell discovers sensitivity, 2021-12-07, 2021-07-12, AFR,Background
Siimon Reynolds on the idea of the commercial:WEB,weblink Talking Heads - Siimon Reynolds, 2008-11-09, 2008-09-22, ABC, ...bowling was in my head. I was bowling every week. And I used to love the animation at Christmas with... for Scrooge, where the Grim Reaper came and visited Scrooge. And I thought, "Well, maybe the Grim Reaper could machine-gun them." Then I thought, no, that'll be a five-second ad and it'll be too short. What's another way he could kill them? He could bowl balls at them. And those two things came together.Of course, back then, the data was unclear. In some countriesâfor instance, Italyâalmost as many women who had AIDS as men. I think there was also a bit of a political fear that there'll be a backlash against gays if everybody thinks it's some kind of gay plague. But, you know, other countries had failed in their AIDS education because heterosexuals weren't listening. We really had to wake people up. There was a lot of information about how to stop AIDS out there, but no-one was reading it.Filming
The commercial cost $300,000 ($750,242 in 2020) to film, and utilised a seven-foot (2.1 m) tall bowling ball on an oversized bowling alley set. The actors were told to fall to the side so the giant ball would not crush them. Reynolds asked John Stanton to sound like Richard Burton when it came to do his voice over.Details about the ad were kept secret during production, and it was only shown to Minister for Health Neal Blewett for the first time a few days before its television debut, which resulted in a "furious argument" with Bowtell and Blewett's predictions that it would attract intense criticism. Despite its potential to create controversy, Prime Minister Bob Hawke decided not to block the rollout of the campaign.Controversy
At the time of its release, the commercial caused immediate controversy due to its confronting tone and frightening imagery, which included scenes where children and a woman holding a baby were knocked down by the Grim Reaper, and the claim that AIDS could "kill more Australians than World War II" if left unchecked. Some detractors claimed the ad was scaremongering and created "unnecessary" fear amongst the broader community, and mounting media criticism and public hysteria cut short the campaign's intended six week run to just three weeks.The ad also received criticism for provoking fear and hostility towards members of Australia's LGBT community and those positive with HIV.WEB,weblink With calls for fresh COVID vaccine ads, what can we learn from past campaigns?, 2021-12-07, 2021-05-23, ABC News, The commercial came to unintentionally identify the Grim Reaper figure in the ad with gay men, who at the time were scapegoated as spreaders of the disease and further marginalised because of this association. Australian AIDS pioneer Ron Penny regretted the fact this occurred:The downside was that the Grim Reaper became identified with gay men rather than as the Reaper. That was what we had unintentionally producedâ[the belief] by some that the Reaper was people with HIV infection, rather than the Reaper harvesting the dead.I think there's never been anything on television or any media that has ever matched it in terms of impact, but no advertising can be without some downside, and that was never intended. But it at least made people aware and probably did change sexual practices of heterosexuals.The narration also highlighted that "at first, only gays and IV drug users were being killed by AIDS", leaving gay men feeling insignificant and stigmatised.Legacy
In Australia, the Grim Reaper commercial has remained an infamous and memorable example of a confronting but effective government public service campaign decades since its original airing,WEB,weblink This confronting advertising campaign ran for only three weeks in the 1980s, but it is seared on the nation's collective memory, 2021-12-06, 2020-05-25, Canberra Times, and has provided inspiration for a number of subsequent public service campaigns with similarly confronting imagery.WEB,weblink 'Grim Reaper' ad guru says his 1987 commercial has never been equalled, 2021-12-06, 2016-03-21, 9News, It has been recognised as a landmark public health initiative.In 2017 Australian entrepreneur Dick Smith commissioned a television commercial that invoked the original Grim Reaper ad, including the use of John Stanton as narrator, to launch his "Fair Go" wealth disparity campaign and to raise awareness of his view that the current rate of population growth in Australia is unsustainable.WEB,weblink 'Angry' Dick Smith 'forced' to spend $1m on new Grim Reaper TV ad, 2021-12-06, 2017-08-14, AdNews, The ad received a mixed reception, with some calling its anti-immigration angle "racist".WEB,weblink Dick Smith revives 'Grim Reaper' ad in bid to curb immigration numbers, 2021-12-06, 2017-08-14, Sydney Morning Herald, WEB,weblink Dick Smith's immigration ad backs One Nation's 'racist agenda': FECCA, 2021-12-06, 2017-11-21, SBS News, During the COVID-19 pandemic, Reynolds has suggested using similar emotionally shocking Grim Reaper-style ads to improve government messaging in order to prevent the further spread of the COVID-19 virus and to scare people out of vaccine hesitancy.WEB,weblink Premier Andrews is all logic, bring out the Grim Reaper says advertising expert, 2021-12-06, 2020-08-09, ABC Radio, WEB,weblink Shock Australians out of vaccine hesitancy, urges Grim Reaper mastermind Siimon Reynolds, 2021-12-06, 2021-06-30, Mumbrella, A 2021 commercial commissioned by the Federal government urging people to book a vaccination appointment which featured a scene of a young woman with COVID-19 struggling to breathe was likened to the Grim Reaper commercial, but was branded insensitive and ineffective by some commentators.WEB,weblink FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S COVID AD HARKS BACK TO 80'S HIV/AIDS GRIM REAPER, 2021-12-06, 2021-07-13, Star Observer, Bill Bowtell, who commissioned the original Grim Reaper ad, said it was "misconceived in every way".References
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- "Grim Reaper (advertisement)" does not exist on GetWiki (yet)
- time: 5:07am EDT - Sat, May 18 2024
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