Aids is a mass murderer?

[Daniellecs]

I don't know if the topic is right for this section, but feel free to remove it elsewhere.

I've seen this thread in another forum, and I found it to be very interesting.

The thread was talking about a new and thoroughly enjoyable AIDS campaign on the battlegrounds now. Proclaiming that 'AIDS is a mass murderer', this campaign website compares AIDS with Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Saddam Hussein.

Next to the discussion of this campaign in general (is it suitable? too offensive?) I'd like to discuss the use of these historical figures in these campaigns. Is it right to portray Hitler and Stalin like this? Aren't there any other figures that would be better suitable for the message of this campaign?

[Thales]

Aids is a disease, not a "mass murderer". Why portray it as something it is not?

[Zip]

Stalin, Hitler and Saddam murdered by choice, a disease has no choice, no volition, no consciousness. A disease can not be held to account for its spread any more than a mountain can be blamed for a person falling off it to his death.

The images shock us, but unless you are comparing people who have AIDS and engage in unprotected sex to those villains, the campaign is missing its mark.

[RussK]

As has already been pointed out, AIDS is not murder. The biggest problems that immediately come to the forefront when I look at these images deal with their negative portrayal of men and sex. The woman's role is shown to be innocent, while the man is shown to be responsible in the transmission of AIDS. Sex is shown to be a bad thing, given the music and images they present, plus the fact that one doesn't know if they are having safe sex or not, the only fact known is that sex is occurring.

The rap video may be a little more effective, in Germany. I've never seen so many kids take an American hip-hop music video for face value, as if it were the truth, like they did in Germany. Here in America, everyone's Ball'n in the ghetto, and all blacks are successful thugs and drug dealers.

Edited September 11, 2009 by RussK

[Black Wolf]

This was either a poor attempt at a slogan, or the person who made such a poster has a fettish for viral organisms and wants to anthromorphize them.

Disgusting.

[aequalsa]

Stalin, Hitler and Saddam murdered by choice, a disease has no choice, no volition, no consciousness. A disease can not be held to account for its spread any more than a mountain can be blamed for a person falling off it to his death.

Maybe not, but with that train of thought we can certainly hold responsible those of us who do not stop this mass murderer from killing all those poor promiscuous drug addicts. I assume that this is more their intended message. They don't mean to demonize the disease-they mean to demonize us.

[Grames]

In Africa AIDS is spread most frequently through heterosexual sex but in America (and I presume other places) it is typically drug users and promiscuous homosexuals who contract AIDs. The posters should have Hitler, Stalin and Saddam doing boy toys or using needles to address the appropriate target audience. Ineffective.

RussK effectively analyses what the imagery does accomplish with its denotation and connotation.

Also, the fallacy of anthropomorphism is pretty crude here.

[Jake_Ellison]

In Africa AIDS is spread most frequently through heterosexual sex but in America (and I presume other places) it is typically drug users and promiscuous homosexuals who contract AIDs. The posters should have Hitler, Stalin and Saddam doing boy toys or using needles to address the appropriate target audience. Ineffective.

RussK effectively analyses what the imagery does accomplish with its denotation and connotation.

Also, the fallacy of anthropomorphism is pretty crude here.

And in Africa, they should probably show a certain holy genleman in a dress and fancy hat, piercing condoms with a big needle, long before they blame sex for AIDS.

[Zip]

The Pope is just as responsible for AIDS as I am... The spread of it certainly, but one can hardly blame him or his religion for the virus.

[SapereAude]

I find it crude and ineffective.

In most cases (there are of course some eceptions) in the US exposing yourself to AIDS is a choice a person makes. A person who chooses to have promiscuous unsafe sex or use dirty needles is definitely NOT a helpless victim likened to the situation of a serial killer or mass murderer.

In some places like Africa the level of choice is much less.

I find the disease/mass murderer thing to be, put simply, stupid.

If that were the case birth is a terrible disease since 100% of those that are born die. Being a man is a disease since 100% die and so on...

The campaign seems avoidant... everyone is going to die and in many cases we choose how that is most likely to occur with our day to day actions.

[Amaroq]

It seems to be trying to make AIDS a scary thing, judging by the music playing when the map of the world was shown in varying shades of red. Probably trying to scare people into caring about AIDS by making them panic.