The creators of an AIDS awareness advertisement that shows a woman having sex with a series of dictators, including Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin, defended it yesterday, amid growing criticism.
Das Comitee, a Hamburg advertising agency, said the advertisement’s shock value was aimed at highlighting the dangers of unprotected sex at a time when public awareness about the risks was diminishing.
“We knew the face we gave to the illness could not be a pretty one,” said Dirk Silz, the agency’s creative director.
The ad was trying to “show the ugliness of the illness, not of AIDS victims,” he said.
But groups representing people with AIDS across Europe have condemned it, saying it only adds to the stigma they already suffer by appearing to put them on a par with mass murderers.
Others criticized the campaign for failing to offer any prevention advice, such as the use of condoms.
The 45-second ad, which is being launched on German TV and in movie theaters this week but cannot be broadcast before 9pm because of its content, shows a couple having sex. Toward the end, the man’s face turns into that of Hitler, along with the slogan “AIDS is a mass murderer.”
In posters, the images of Stalin and former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein have also been used.
The campaign was the brainchild of the AIDS awareness group, Regenbogen (Rainbow), which launched the video online last week. The campaign is due to run until World AIDS day on Dec. 1.
“We’re trying to tell people that while interest in AIDS declined over the last few years, the number of people with AIDS in actually going up,” Regenbogen’s deputy chief Heiko Schoessling said on Monday.
“People around the globe have been watching it,” he said. “It seems to speak especially to young people. Older people, who still remember World War II may not like it as much.”
“You can’t satisfy everybody,” Schoessling said.
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