I knew what was coming but I was still quite shocked by this advert. Very powerful stuff that should work well at raising awareness and eliciting donations to Women’s Aid.
Sorry, we didn’t agree to that. That wasn’t in the script.
I think that the dialogue is pretty clever as it is working on two levels there victims of domestic violence never signed up for that when they started the relationship, it wasn’t in their script.
A friend of mine commented on it.
The ad is disturbing, but does it actually work as a message against domestic violence? I suspect a few will see it as wish fulfilment porn, while the rest of us will just be upset by it. Does it do anything more than temporarily draw attention?
I couldn’t imagine anyone who might dislike Keira Knightley would actually get off on it once they saw it.
But yes after a little searching I was unfortunately proved wrong as shown in this bunch of comments at The Onion’s AV Club which usually is pretty good source of intelligent commentary.
Some better discussions are going on at Feministing and Metafilter.
I think that a number of people are missing the point of the purpose of the advert though. I think it has primarily been designed to temporarily draw attention, start discussion and get people to donate to Women’s Aid. It was not designed to give the message that “it is never too soon to leave an abusive relationship. There are places for you to go”. Tackling domestic violence needs a multi-pronged approach and hopefully this advert will raise awareness and funds to enable another longer term low key campaign that will give practical advice to help women in these situations get out of them.
