Remember those Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board ads about how if you drink too much alcohol and end up getting raped, you should blame both own drunk ass and your friends? Well, we weren’t the only ones who thought they were stupid. After numerous complaints, the PLCB has taken the ads down.
What finally convinced the PLCB to remove the ads wasn’t complaints from people who found the victim blaming problematic, but rather victims themselves who found the images accompanying the ads— a woman’s legs with her panties pulled down past her knees— upsetting and victimizing. Some said it forced them to relive their own assaults.
The ads had been in development for a couple of years before their big recent unveil and the subsequent cascade of booing and hissing. According to a spokesperson from the agency, the scenario of “drinking causes you and your friends to get raped” was chosen from a field that included alternate, less dumb scenarios that might actually do something to control negative consequences of intoxication rather than point fingers. Why did they go with the ad campaign they chose? “This is just the one the agency chose to go with.”
Okay then.
The Board’s optimistic that the time the ads were in use made an impact. The spokesperson said, “If we can prevent one person from taking that next drink, then we feel this campaign has been an enormous success.”
How about preventing one person from committing that next date rape?
Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board Responds to Offensive Date Rape Ad [Philadelphia Weekly]