Masculine mascots arouse discussion
“Off the Radar” spotlights interesting culture bytes outside of the SMU campus. It appears every Thursday in “The Mix.” Oh, Smokey the Bear, look what thou hath wrought.
Starting with the nation’s favorite fire-preventing grizzly in 1944, cartoon characters have been a mainstay of public service advertising campaigns. However, those kooky Californians have come up with a cartoon service ad that would make even that venerable old bear blush.
In June, the San Francisco Department of Public Health began looking for a new spokesperson for a public service campaign to raise awareness of a syphilis epidemic that was spreading through the city’s gay community. The department thought long and hard and finally decided on a spokesperson. Or should I say spokespenis?
Yes, a city in the state that ruled that the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance was a vulgarity of the grossest offense, has plastered a smiling syphilis-ridden penis over newspapers, magazines, billboards, post cards, and even bus stations.
San Francisco spent $50,000 on “Healthy Penis 2002,” to raise awareness for this entirely curable sexually-transmitted disease that is often transmitted along with HIV. When planning the campaign, organizers believed that its intended audience would take the message more seriously if the ads were a bit more light-hearted.
So the result is a series of ads featuring penises at the bus station, at work, and at nightclubs. The penises work, dance and relate with other penises promoting the message that a happy society member (pardon the pun) is a healthy one.
The ads make an effort to reflect the city’s diversity. Flip through a San Francisco magazine and you’ll see white penises dancing with black penises. There even appear to be a few Hispanic penises getting in the groove. Syphilis affects people of all races.
But sexually transmitted diseases are no laughing matter.
Syphilis can be “really annoying” as one penis tells another over breakfast in one of the ads. Luckily, the public health department is a step ahead of them in the quest to vent the frustrations of infection. They’ve issued the “Healthy Penis” stress-relieving squeeze toy. Let’s not think about that one for too long.
The city has caught a lot of flack nationally from organizations who call the campaign offensive, not only for its graphic nature but also in its representation of gay men as walking genitalia.
“How can you have a campaign talking about syphilis and not talk about where the sores show up – on the penis?” asks Stephen Gibson, program manager of Castroguys, a gay men’s health project in the city. “Penis is not a vulgar word.”
Penis! Penis! Penis! Still not convinced? Neither was the city of Los Angeles. When developing its own campaign to raise public awareness about the epidemic, it decided to borrow the under-appreciated sidekick from the comics in San Francisco’s campaign – Phil the Syphilis Sore – for their own “Stop the Sores” ads.
In the San Francisco ads, this grouchy little character tags along with his penis pals burping, yelling and guzzling cosmopolitans, but in the City of Angels, he’s stolen the show.
“I like to act,” he tells one cartoon television talk show host, “but what I really want to do is infect.”
The Los Angeles Department of Health Services is funneling $400,000 into their campaign which features print ads and another squeeze toy. (Didn’t your mother tell you not to squeeze your sores?)
New to the L.A. campaign is a walking, talking costumed version of the sore that can be scheduled for appearances at your next public event.
But does he do birthday parties?
For more information on syphilis prevention, head to www.healthypenis2002.org or www.stopthesores.org
-Compiled from online sources.
