From AdFreak
There are subtle ways to raise awareness about relationship violence. And then there's "Hit the Bitch," a Web campaign by a Danish advocacy group. Setting up an interface where you're encouraged to slap and punch a woman seems pretty extreme. It's almost like an advergame, except you're delivering an adverbeating! (You can use the mouse, or connect with your Webcam and swing at the girl with your hand.) Getting called a "100% idiot" at the end doesn't feel like much of a rebuke. Perhaps you're supposed to feel guilty, like a real-life abuser might, for continuing to hit the woman just to see what happens next?
Un-fucking-believable.
From Sociological Images
At the top, a counter keeps track; you start out as 100% Pussy, 0% Gangsta, but your Gangsta rating goes up every time you hit her.
Apparently, though, when you get up to where you’d be at 100% Gangsta, it instead says 100% Idiot, as though this is a real put-down that is going to make you think really seriously about domestic violence.
I am trying to think of any context that would make this seem like a good idea, or an effective way to combat domestic violence. I mean, ok, yeah, I guess people might be made more aware of it after hearing about or playing the game, but is it likely to have any positive effect? It seems more likely that people who don’t already take domestic violence seriously would either be uncomfortable, leave the site, and never think about it again, or find it funny to play for a few minutes just to see what would happen…and somehow encouraging people to slap around an image of a woman for fun seems like a really weird way to get people to think more seriously about domestic violence.
I have no words. thoughts?
so what's the diff between this and people playing gta?
ReplyDeleteMostly the difference is about intentions. With GTA and other video games, the violence against women is about the larger culture of violence and reflects the unintended consequences of that culture (i.e. relativistic arguments that is is "just" a video game). Here, the intention is to raise awareness about domestic violence yet they do so through a means that perpetuates violence. Here the intentions are clearer and therefore have a higher degree of responsibility of not recreating or perpetuating the violence it purports to educate about.
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