Public Intimidation Films?
Remember Public Information films? They used to pop up on TV once every few months and, in terms of their ability to startle the viewer, fell somewhere between the BBC’s ‘Interlude’ and everyone’s switch-off trigger, the Party Political Broadcast.
A squirrel named Tufty told me how best to cross a road; ‘At the kerb STOP. Look right, look left, look right again and if all’s clear then cross the road, looking and listening as you go’. A cat called Charley used to warn a young boy of the dangers of playing with matches, swimming in rivers, going off to see puppies with a stranger or the risk of being scalded if he ran round the kitchen table when Mummy had just placed a pot of freshly brewed tea upon it. I particularly admired the gormless Reginald Molehusband who, by listening to the sombre instructions of the voiceover man, managed to perfect his reverse-parking technique. My real favourites were Joe and Petunia who advised me that I should ‘Always Follow The Country Code’ and that I should avoid getting myself into silly difficulties at sea because it would bother the Coastguard.
Aah. Fond memories. I was informed but I wasn’t intimidated and I certainly wasn’t brainwashed.
Can the same be said for the 8-year olds of today who are being subjected to what I can only call Public Intimidation films? Whereas I watched the annual anti-Drink/Driving campaign at Christmas, today’s youngsters can expect to be rattled by a grim bedtime story involving the death of our planet because of bad grown-ups and their CO2 emissions. Whereas I went to the flicks and sat entranced through Lionel Bart’s ‘Oliver!’, today’s youngsters will always associate the jolly ditty ‘I’d Do Anything’ with the selfish smoking of evil parents.
Today’s youngsters no doubt nag their way through each and every 4×4 school-run because there’s an advert telling them that bad grown-ups should drive 5 miles fewer each week in order to save the world. If today’s youngsters can find a spare minute before they retire to their laptops to blast gangstas and ‘ho’s to kingdom come, they can also shop their parents to the bin-police with proof that Mummy isn’t recycling in a globally responsible fashion. Then, just as Evil Mummy and Daddy are calming their shredded nerves with a G&T, today’s youngsters can point out that they know all about the unseen damage alcohol can do because they’ve seen the advert.
Today’s youngsters are well aware that the State knows if car tax hasn’t been renewed and will hunt down and prosecute a Benefit Cheat (sublime irony there I feel given the MPs’ Expenses fiddle). All in all, today’s youngsters are as likely to see a televised State Diktat as they are to see an advert for a KitKat.
The State is really going to town with these guilt-inducing infomercials, punctuating almost every advert-break with one or the other. The emphasis is on the viewer to listen to, and behave responsibly in the light of, the information so kindly dished out. ‘Enjoy Alcohol Responsibly’. ‘Why won’t you give up smoking for them?’ ‘Act on CO2.’ ‘Get an IUD fitted.’ Etc., etc., etc.
We have been warned.
The supermarkets already log everything we put in our shopping trolleys and send us vouchers with money off if we buy more of the same; now we’re encouraged to ‘godirect.gov’ and identify ourselves on the Government’s caring database rather than cherry-picking our searches from the big bad internet at large.
After all, the Government only has our GPS co-ordinates, our mug-shots, our tax details and our DNA, why wouldn’t it want to keep track of whether we wish to earn up to £30K/annum by retraining as a driving instructor?
Well if you ask me (and I realise that you don’t) the Government is missing a couple of tricks here.
If the Nanny State wants to run so many of these finger-wagging adverts telling us what we’re doing wrong and why it’ll be our own fault if The State doesn’t help us out in the future, then why doesn’t it go the whole hog and tackle obesity and the World’s overpopulation? Why doesn’t it just come out and run a couple of these Public Intimidation films which say: “We know you are sitting in front of the telly smoking and eating chips. You’ll end up as an obese lung cancer patient if you continue to be a lazy, smoking, chip-guzzling slob and when you do, it’ll be YOUR FAULT. Stop watching telly, smoking and eating chips or the NHS won’t treat you. So there..” ….
Or: “The world is overcrowded. Stop breeding. The State can’t afford to keep paying for your house and your chips. If you have another child now you’ve seen this film, we will take away your house and your benefits. So there. And stop eating chips, fatso.”
While they’re at it, why don’t they install weighbridges at the checkouts and announce to the rest of the store not only the weight of the shopper but also the fat/calorie/alcohol breakdown of each transaction before e-mailing the information straight off to the shopper’s GP?
If non-stop information-gathering and subsequently informed advice from The Government is truly for the benefit of the ignorant and unwashed British Public, then surely … every little would help?
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1
February 20, 2010 at 14:43 -
Ooh! Look Petunia, he’s waving to us!
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2
February 20, 2010 at 14:48 -
3
February 20, 2010 at 15:34 -
“While they
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4
February 20, 2010 at 15:59 -
Charley says ‘Labour, Labour, never touch, they can hurt you very much’.
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5
February 20, 2010 at 16:52 -
The one in production at the moment is about the danger of voting Labour.
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6
February 20, 2010 at 16:59 -
7
February 20, 2010 at 17:10 -
Did you have to give them IDEAS..?!
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8
February 20, 2010 at 18:10 -
It gets worse. Look at this entry I made yeaterday about the lifechannel and the Community Communication Network.
http://delphiusdebate.blogspot.com/2010/02/lifechannel.html
Thats right, government propaganda piped direct to your GP surgery, your local shopping centre, community centre and elsewhere. Plus, most sinister: your local school.
Why on God’s earth taxpayers should be funding what amounts to 24 hour party polictical broadcasts and socialist propaganda beats me. But its par for the course with Labour, who see nothing wrong in using taxpayer’s money to promote their political message.
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9
February 20, 2010 at 18:20 -
If five-a-day is so good and cigarettes so bad why does the welfare state hand out money which can be exchanged for fags and fatty food?
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10
February 21, 2010 at 10:55 -
Gloria, so glad someone else is being driven to distraction over these !
Do you think government is getting a ‘deal’, since the private sector aren’t spending much on ads at the moment ?
My personal favorite is the one, where 7 year olds pretend to be teenagers and tell us what terrible things happened to them when they had an alcoholic drink . . . . -
11
February 21, 2010 at 11:03 -
I know, miss mink, I know – I was spoilt for choice and had to leave some of the dratted things out. The tagline for that is ‘Don’t let alcohol decide’ (or something like that). I veer from nausea to purple-faced umbrage every time one of ghastly things comes on.
As for whether the Govt. is getting a prime-time advert ‘deal’, I doubt it – I think we are just being WARNED about things that are quietly becoming punishable offences…
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12
February 21, 2010 at 11:38 -
Why don’t all Supermarkets have a paper and cardboard recycling bin so we can get rid of a load of rubbish before we take it home?
I realize that this could be difficult with bottles and cans. I’m not daft you know.
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13
February 21, 2010 at 11:43 -
We are paying huge amounts of money then, to be warned !
Which reminds me, how much did that ‘simpsons’ info-mercial about our eating habits cost, i wonder . . .
oh no, blood begining to boil . . . -
14
February 21, 2010 at 12:29 -
Sorry it wasn’t a simpsons info-mercial, we payed
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15
February 21, 2010 at 12:37 -
That’s the six hundred and forty thousand pound question…
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16
February 21, 2010 at 19:59 -
Excellent article and so on target!
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17
March 6, 2010 at 23:20 -
I have just watched a commercial funded by the Home Office and ran to the computer to find out how much the Government has allocated to spew out these wrist-slapping vignettes from dawn till dusk. It appears that the Government spent
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