Ok, all you people out there who thought a waitress squeezing dishwater into the drinks of customers who didn’t root for her football team in the Direct TV ad was harmless…do you want to take responsibility for a trend?
As you can see over on YouTube, a climate change advocacy group called 10:10 is pressing its case with a video showing a teacher explaining to her pre-teen students the 10:10 formula, in which everyone cuts their carbon emission by 10%, “thus keeping the planet safe for everyone, eventually.” Most of the class volunteers various ways they and their parents can meet the 10% goal, but a couple of students refuse—vicious, dumb, Right wing global warming “deniers,” apparently. So the teacher pushes a button and blows them to bits, with flesh and blood splattering everywhere. Similar scenarios involving the detonation of adult victims follow. You see, the only way to get “everyone” to save the planet by cutting carbon emissions by 10% is to eliminate those who refuse to do it.
I like blowing up people in comedy as well as the next person, and maybe more. The old SCTV cable show used to have a running gag in which irritating performers like Helen Reddy were “blown up” mid-song by a couple of crazy yokels, and I thought it was pretty funny. I always likes to see the Coyote get blasted, too.
But this video is insidious. Like all global warming propaganda, it posits that doomsday is on the horizon, sooner or later, if the world doesn’t address global warming. This statement of “fact”…not as a position or an opinion, but as established fact…is followed by the implication that anyone who opposes it as not only wrong, but selfish, mean, ignorant and dangerous. Symbolically blowing up such people—children, in this case—is more than just a joke. It is an expression of disrespect and hatred. It dehumanizes those who hold opposing views. And as James Taranto correctly points out, it smacks of totalitarianism. The catch line “No pressure” in the video plays less like a punchline than a threat.
As with the Direct TV ads, the violent 10:10 ads are being defended with the “lighten up!” argument. Is it really healthy for advocates to create ad campaigns “humorously” suggesting that political opponents (or their children!) be liquidated? Would you laugh at an advocacy video showing opponents to the “Ground Zero Mosque” being blown up when an Imam Rauf-like actor pushes a button? Would that be appropriate satire? How about a spot showing doctors blowing up proponents of Obamacare, or Tea Party members blowing up Nancy Pelosi?
The 10:10 video would be completely different, and legitimate black humor, if it was produced by Saturday Night Live or “South Park.” Produced by people who really do hold animus against the people they call “deniers,” it is sinister.
Squeezing dishwater into drinks is looking better to me, somehow.
Ethics Alarms 
I loathe the “funny” that is passing for comedy lately in ads. It’s downright MEAN, and often illegal to boot. My 5-yo daughter notices these things, so why not the ad folks?
Isn’t killing 50% of the population going to reduce our carbon footprint by more than 10%? Maybe there’s some counter active effects of the explosives they are detonating…
“Eco-fascists” is the new term, and Al Gore has been their inspiration. Might be funny if it didn’t betry their actual viewpoint and intention. That this ad even made it this far is an indication of a degree of intolerance in the population that sets the stage for acceptance of a totalitarian regime. Look, even Woody Allen said that he wished Obama could be a dictator, because he could “get more things done.” Oh, how inconvenient, to have a republic, where minority views must be respected. Remember this when they come for my guns and you do not defend me.
“Even” Woody Allen, Peter? This would be the “Roman Polanski is a poor, victimized, persecuted artist as pure as the driven snow” Woody Allen? The “my daughter, my lover” Woody Allen? Since when has Woody’s judgment on anything other than quirky romantic comedies been worthy of respect or even notice?
True enough, but somewhere in time, somehow he managed a large following, at least in the 70s, 80s. In any case, he manages to get into the newspapers and have his opinions sought publicly more often than mine are (i.e. zero).
So you’re jealous of the ol’ Woodster, eh? Don’t be. You have at least as much influence as he does. Trust me.
Well, she wasn’t Woody Allen’s daughter, in the strictest sense of the term, and the powers that be decided, however reluctantly, that it wasn’t prosecutable. But I’m with you in the sense that the whole incident sure gave my gag reflex a long workout. Unethical, yes, but it still seems like an inadequate descriptor, somehow. Isn’t Woody a member that pantheon of radioactive public figures you were discussing in another (earlier) article? If he isn’t, consider this a nomination for inclusion.
Karl! Karl! “Isn’t prosecutable” is the hoary Marion Barry standard of ethics! Yes it was legal, because she wasn’t his biological daughter (assuming he didn’t engage in statutory rape, which has been alleged), but it is still incest from an ethical perspective, an abuse of power, a breach of trust, and YUCK, POOEY, ECHHHH, BLECHH, BARF, not to mention that he was fooling around with his virtual daughter behind the back of his virtual wife.
That TV ad (wasn’t it made in Britain?) depicted children being callously destroyed by their own teacher for political incorrectness, with their blood being splattered all over their classmates. These were actual children being used to depict this. Not adults or cartoon characters. Even if it had been the latter, it would have been disgraceful. Cartoons appeal to children… as the makers of “adult” cartoons are well aware. But again, this ad involved actual kids in its making. And a terrible message it sent. Conform to the agenda… or suffer at the hands of your own adult supervisors. In an age where children are already degraded in the media to the status of somewhat useful tools at best, this can only be viewed as chilling. It was only a few days ago, on a BBC talk show, that a female author calmly stated that she would smother a handicapped child of her own without remorse… to the utter horror of the two other ladies. This is the elitist mentality of today at work.