Lauren Best

I’d seen Virgin Radio’s “Give Your Radio a Reason to Live” ads on bus shelters across Toronto (which, by the way, everyone has forgotten Astral is souping-up and replacing, along with other street furniture, much to thechagrin), confusion, frustration, and/or outrage of citizens, depending on who you ask).
I’d only seen the “radio by the shower” ads, though they were widespread, depicting a radio perched on the ledge of a bathtub. When I saw the radio waiting for it’s last subway train, I laughed out loud. Mostly from shock… somehow this seemed much more violent and inappropriate than the bathtub version of the ad. Perhaps because I’ve considered and discussed with others the issue of subway suicides and their impact on those beyond the person ending their life, and the intentional lack of publicity. Which begs one to consider: when suicides are covered carefully, if at all, by news media for fear of increasing suicide rates, is it not slightly shocking to have a bus shelter billboard using suicide as a humorous sales tool?
The nature of much humour (especially if it involves satire or irony) is that it will shock and offend those who don’t find it hilarious. Virgin saw this in Ottawa where criticism over it’s poorly received ad series depicting troubled young women in need of being saved from the “gods of rock” led to the removal of the ads. Personally, I found the “lock up your daughter” ads far funnier and perhaps less offensive (or at least, differently offensive) than the suicide ads. Which is why I was really surprised to find nothing on the web criticizing the Toronto radio-suicide ads. Nothing.
No one is talking smack about Virgin depicting radios about to commit suicide in very human circumstances. Possibly because of the anthropomorphizing of anything makes it easier to swallow? I’m not so much offended as curious. Is suicide just funnier than oppressing women? Is the connection to real people drowning themselves, or jumping off bridges, or jumping in front of subway trains, more tenuous than the idea of locking up our daughters to protect them from the Gods of Rock? And to look at my own reaction, why was the portrayal of bathtub suicide in humorous advertising so much less shocking to me than the suggestion of subway suicide? Was it less “real”: not as immediate or visceral a connection? Was it a subconscious judgment of suicide at home to be more “acceptable” than public suicide?
All this said, I rewatched “Wristcutters: A Love Story” tonight and loved it (again) despite the fact that the whole thing is making light of suicide. I think what shocked me most about the Virgin ads is that they were public and blatant. Which is precisely what advertising is supposed to be; it wouldn’t be doing it’s job if it didn’t get in your face and grab you in some way. “Wristcutters”, as the name would imply, was even more graphic, but the fact that it was a feature film allowed it to explore ideas around suicide at the viewer’s discretion, rather than just displaying images for all to see without choice in the matter, with the sole purpose to sell.
I’m not particularly offended by these ads (and according to Google, neither is the rest of the internet), but I wonder how they affect those who see them. This is about a larger public issue. The content of advertising concerns me far more than the content of pornography, which has historically been a more contentious issue. We have chosen to allow advertising to be shown in public space, with little to no public input used to choose the content being displayed (yes, there are advertising regulations, but I’m clearly talking about everything that the regulations don’t prevent). Advertising isn’t fundamentally evil or offensive. However, I wonder about the effects of images of violence (and sexuality) that are displayed for all to see (including the young and impressionable, not to mention the rest of the impressionable minds of mass culture), without any democratic input into what is being displayed and to whom. Street art, though also public and uncontrolled, is infinitely more democratic, participatory and creative, but nevertheless far less influential and visible. Maybe I’ll install lighting to illuminate my favourite graf at night, so everyone can enjoy it in the nightscape of otherwise dimly lit allies, or notice it for the first time while waiting for the Blue Night bus.