Robot Suicide, Don't Do It

A recent wave of commercials involving the theme of suicide is having a backlash from the public.

According to various organizations, including the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, suicide is no laughing matter and shouldn’t be portrayed as such in television and advertisements. Commercials are being pulled from the air as the complaints come in.

Take for example this commercial, from General Motors, which belongs to the aforementioned category of condemned commercials. As well as this commercial from Washington Mutual, and this one from Volkswagen.

So wait. Suicide is funny. I mean, in the case of the General Motors commercial, robot suicide is definitely funny, and the Washington Mutual commercial is kind of funny (although pretty misogynistic).

Advertisements already use sex, violence and death all the time. I appreciate the public trying to keep a leash on this stuff; but if it's funny, and no people actually do commit suicide in any of these ads, I don't really see a problem with it, especially if it involves robots.

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A group blog exploring our media world. Produced by the Digital Journalism: Blogging course at New York University, Spring 2007.

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