Murder by mass communication

There is this sudden spate of ads on TV today about emergency contraceptive pills.

I-pill fired the opening salvo with a couple of very sensitively done ads about a very-much married couple who obviously share a great relationship, not to mention chemistry. The woman, just coming down from the morning-after glow of well-being, suddenly remembers that in the heat of the moment, they had overlooked their usual means of protection. The man senses what is wrong, and the voice-over comes in, almost with their simultaneous realisation that it is okay, they have this wonderful friend called

I-pill for exactly such times. Beautifully done, because in the nuances lies a whole tale of a strong relationship, a wonderful understanding and empathy, and, the most difficult to communicate without spelling out, that this was a one-off, first ever calamity. Marketing at its most mature, advertising and film-making at their most intelligent and sensitive. My kudos to all.

But we have a talent to plunge down a slippery slope where none exists, don’t we?

A crass, crude, overall obnoxious ad had to follow. An atrocious script ably assisted by horrendous film-making brought Mankind bursting into our drawing rooms as a masterpiece of bad taste. An otherwise fetching model suddenly looks cheap and tarty, the relationship seems unmistakably of the slam-bam kind, and the TV in the room plays the avid voyeur who, unable to contain himself any longer, bursts in on the couple flashing a quick-fix solution to the minor pothole in the path of amorous love.

As usual, bad taste begat worse. I-pill responded with a shrewish elder sister, carefully crafted to be hated on sight, exhorting her munni to seeeedha abort. Just when my brand new plasma large screen was fast approaching the point of sudden demise by violent encounter with an ashtray (my late night viewing habits gives me a more-than-unfair share of such abysmal crap on the tube), better sense briefly prevailed, and I-pill went back to its earlier, sensitive, tasteful avatar.

Not for long, though. They are back now with an effort that makes Mankind’s sleazy tale look like Romeo and Juliet. A young girl sitting at the breakfast table with her parents suddenly realises that oh-my-god-sex-makes-babies-and –I-am-not-married-yet. Off she rushes to a sleazy abortion clinic in a filthy back-alley, straight out of a seventies melodrama.

Forget the stupidity, forget the bad script superficially prettied up by the arty black and white treatment. I am appalled. Even as a hardnosed live-and -let-live practitioner of a philosophy that says our job is to meet demands that exist, so why criticise fairness cream ads, I am truly appalled. Forget encouraging the youth to freely indulge in pre-marital sex. Forget actively paving the way for moral ‘looseness.’ I couldn’t care less. But we are talking about a crime here. We are talking about attempted murder by mass communication.

In this day and age, when millions, no billions, are being poured into educating people about AIDS and the dangers of unprotected sex, what on earth are these people thinking of? And where is the moral brigade when the issue is young lives, not short skirts and visible underwear?

(The author is the National Creative Director, FCB Ulka)