I hope you're sitting down, conservative readers. The Belgian Public Health Dept. not only promotes the use of contraceptives by teenagers to prevent unwanted pregnancy, it pays for them. They even created an elaborate campaign to shock girls into using contraceptives by showing them the gritty, grinding reality of parenthood.
The campaign features a diary of Laura, Teenage Mum, and an AWESOME Sims 2-style commercial. Laura runs ragged changing toxic diapers, getting hurled on, missing her friends phone calls--just like a real parent. The message: parenthood is not a game, LOSER!
Of course, as one Belgian bureaucrat puts it, "One will underline the brilliant technical quality of the spot, while wondering about the inevitably negative image which it conveys of maternity, 'for the good cause'."
Right on, Jacques. Because maternity is--wait, did he say maternity? Yeah, what message is this sending to Belgian guys? Aren't they equally responsible for these important pregnancy--and parenting--decisions? Pas de tout, it seems. Just check out Teenage Dad's shirt above: why, it appears that baby daddy Thomas--who stops by to play once in a while, but who spends most of his time with his friends, and who talks big and doesn't deliver, and who backed out after promising to babysit--is a lascivious Canadian exchange student, come to prey on our fair Belgian womanhood.
Un meilleur accËs ý la contraception pour les jeunes [educationsante.be]
Read Laura's diary and learn all about contraceptives, NL|FR|DE [laura.be, agency: duval guillaume]
Or just watch, er, Bekijk de TV-Spot in the NL version, then click around the green tab at the base of the diary's spine. [via waxy]
Is it me or is the commercial link broken?
Sounds otherwise like a very good initiative as far as I see it. Funny is though that on the diary site the kid's name changes between languages. :)
no, the site got swamped with traffic and removed the file. It's still available at the original laura.be site, though.