Well,I got carried away there. It’s not literally the whole world. Only a teensy weensy portion of it.
The fellows at A Voice for Men, you see, evidently stung by criticism that they aren’t activists, have begun engaging in real, honest-to-goodness real-world activism, by which I mean that a handful of them, some in Canada and at least one in Australia, have been putting up posters advertising the AVFM website.
In other words, their activism consists of putting up posters for a website whose only activism thus far has consisted of putting up posters for itself.
Well, eventually they’ll get the hang of it, I guess.
In any case, the A Voice for Menners have discovered something about activism: if you do things that are offensive enough, people will be offended. And so they’ve managed to offend some people in Canada and in Australia where their posters have gone up. In Australia, there have even been a couple of news articles written about them! For example, one in Melbourne’s Herald Sun says:
A MAN who is littering the city with posters promoting a website that encourages men to support rapists has declined the opportunity to explain himself.
The website, which the Herald Sun has chosen not to name, is campaigning to get men sitting on juries for rape trials to “vow publicly to vote not guilty, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that the charges are true”. …
The website’s publisher, Paul Elam, told the Herald Sun he was too busy watching the movie Air Force One to be interviewed, but later said by email he stood by the campaign.
Ooh! How very, very alpha of him.
Other articles (see here and here) describe the posters as “hate posters,” because one of them seems to suggest that women provoke domestic violence against themselves. The text of the poster reads “Domestic Violence Women Are Half the Problem.”
In fact, Elam and company are trying to suggest that women instigate half of all domestic violence, and thus are “half the problem,” but they’re so wedded to the easily misunderstood “half the problem” slogan that they somehow cannot seem to get this idea across in poster form. (This idea is itself incorrect, but that’s a whole other kettle of angry dudes.) Elam and company don’t quite seem to understand that an important part of activism is actually conveying your ideas to the general public rather than simply provoking people.
You can’t buy this kind of publicity!
Well, technically, you could, but no one would, because no one would willingly pay money for a publicity campaign that makes them appear to be hateful assholes — and in fact, even a teensy bit more hateful than they actually are.
So, congratulations, I guess?
If anyone wants to help AVFM in its publicity campaign, the super-sarcastic poster below, and a number of other poorly thought out and badly designed posters, can be downloaded from AVFM here by “anyone who wants to print and distribute them.”
Note: THIS IS A REAL AVFM POSTER. I didn’t make it up. See here.
I think the “Air Force One” line was Elam saying he was so macho and alpha and unconcerned with what the evil misandrist press would say about him that he was going to blow off the interview to watch an old movie about a macho dude kicking ass instead. (But then he got back to them anyway to answer their next email.)
At least that’s what I think it means. I’m too busy watching kitten videos on youtube to try to make sense of anything he does.
‘cargo cult social justice movement’ – I like!
If he were truly Alpha, it would have been The Dirty Dozen, Straw Dogs, or several other I could think of where machismo leaves cartoon stink lines coming from your set. Not Air Force One.
Most people would probably understand that it’s a Matrix reference, but would then be confused as to the relevance to the poster. It sort of implies that the MRM thinks that The Matrix was a true story.
That’s the impression that I got, too, when I read that paragraph. Elame, the MANLY MAN, is far too busy watching a MANLY MAN movie to bother with some mangina wanting to interview him.
[blockquote]I think the “Air Force One” line was Elam saying he was so macho and alpha and unconcerned with what the evil misandrist press would say about him that he was going to blow off the interview to watch an old movie about a macho dude kicking ass instead. (But then he got back to them anyway to answer their next email.)[/blockquote]
So Elam basically tried to neg the press? XD
Farking blockquotes. XD I’m using ] instead of < on another forum!
From a post at AVfM regarding this article in the Waverly Leader:
[bold emphasis mine]
Yeah, it couldn’t be that your use of such shitty posters isn’t exactly spreading the message that you’re wanting to convey! They think that they’re being witty and oh-so-clever by utilizing their “inside jokes” in their “poster revolution”, when all they’re really succeeding at is making people outside of their echo chamber go “WTF??”
Top Gun seems more like something Elam would watch, being full of manly men playing manly beach volleyball and whatnot.
@blitzgal I LIVE for Persona. Hell, I bought a PSP just so I could play Persona 3 Portable =D
Damn Atlus, making such good games, taking all my money…
Maybe nurseries will see an influx of customers buying up pear trees because, “hey yeah, growing my own fruit, what a good idea!!”
What does “Group guilt is the essence of social justice” even mean? Who is feeling guilty? Should they be? Where does the social justice come in? Is it justified or is it what the posters are protesting against? I suppose it means that women get things from men because we make them feel guilty, but wait, aren’t they the ones seeking social justice with the poster? I can only imagine most people reading that, shaking their heads, and walking away without giving it another thought.
Clairedammit – I think they’re trying to say that the bad social justice, like feminism, makes men as a group feel guilty.
(Okay, so they call their movement social justice and want women to feel guilty but shhh we’re not talking about that right now.)
@sabresguy5
I also bought a PSP for Persona games… admittedly mine was for Persona 2 (I bought it off a friend to save it from the clutches of her younger sister, and she gave me P3P). I can say that P3P is really good, and the female protagonist route is very well done (except for the accidental pronoun slip occasionally).
Only annoying thing was that they didn’t do the full anime-style cutscenes. I loved those cutscenes, especially the opening one, the Arcana Magician one, and the Moonlight Bridge one. 🙁
Hmm. I’m in the mood to play some Digital Devil Saga… 😛
I too had no idea what ‘pear’ was referring to until I read the comments.
*sigh* I’m sorry to say this is making me depressed rather than amused. The extent of denial and self-deceit is really quite frightening. It’s a crucial time for the issue of women’s bodily autonomy and these idiots could do some real damage. I’m just glad their poster campaign is so totally rubbish. Let’s hope it stays that way.
Wait a minute, they’re putting these up in Canada? We have hate-speech laws here, they shouldn’t be allowed to do that.
I’m going to start making them some posters.
http://imgur.com/qlBvh
http://imgur.com/wAn1R
I honestly don’t think these are any worse than theirs. Honestly, they might be better. It’s hard to hit such a low bar.
Re cargo cult social justice movement: I remember talking about it, because I remember feeling vaguely uncomfortable with the idea of using cargo cults as a comparison, what with me being a white man and all, and historic cargo cults being made up of brown people who weren’t at fault for developing cargo cults.
But I think someone else used the term first.
Hate crime laws in Canada are a tricky thing. I believe the prosecutors would have to show that these posters are likely to incite violence or other serious consequences against women. As it stands, most people aren’t aware of the MRM, and what its really after.
Most Canadians are going to a) not pay attention to the posters or b) see them and not really understand what they mean.
And yes, the domestic violence posters were correctly percieved, as everyone here who’s read girlwriteswhat knows.
More posters for them!
http://imgur.com/ErKSA
http://imgur.com/Toe0j
Boy, this activism sure is hard work!
I hope they put up their posters in Amarillo. I have a new set of Sharpies and am in the mood for some poster-defacing.
@creativewritingstudent I miss those cutscenes. They were really well done…ah well =(
Right now I’m doing the female protagonist route on NG+, and I’m really liking it.
Speaking of DDS, about a week ago I tried to beat the optional boss, y’know, Mr. Badass himself, and the results were…at least 5 failed attempts before I took to the internet to come up with a new strategy. Now I’m gonna go and kick his ass >=D
I was off making them posters too!
http://i.imgur.com/Pj1p0.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/pnkmR.jpg
Their campaign’s gone pear-shaped, innit 🙂
Hey David,
Since http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/true-crime-scene/website-that-supports-rapists-branded-disgusting/story-fnat7jnn-1226457731237 is a paysite, I am curious,
1. Would you post, in the name of Fair Use, a bit more of the article? Otherwise, it makes it difficult to really understand what is being said, how it is being said, and the context.
2. And again, I’m just curious, how are you reading it? Do you actually subscribe, or are you given access due in some part to your being a journalist? Or is it a lexis/nexis thing?
I haven’t quite figured out what I think of Paul Elam or avfm, but often the first step in activism is posters and bumper stickers.
Also consider the actions of Fathers 4 Justice, or even the public suicide of Thomas Ball.
And yes, not every poster is on target, some are huge misses in terms of messaging.
@sabresguy5
At the moment, DDS is the new shiny toy, I picked up both in a second-hand shop for £15. I have so many games I need to finish and 5/ths are SMT.