This image that I found is a real life AIDS campaign poster that was released in France. As you can see, it shows a man having sex with a large scorpion and a woman receiving oral sex from an enormous tarantula. Sexy right?
I decided to talk about Semiotics with this poster, as I think the semiotics in this photograph are negative. The posters main point is to bring awareness to AIDS with shock value. The grotesque image of humans having sex with arachnids sticks in the mind of the viewer, but may not do the job that the advertisement was made to do. While it does its job of shocking the viewer the whole idea of using a large tarantula and scorpion is to show something that is poisonous and therefore dangerous to us and is something we want to avoid. The huge spider and scorpion register in our mind as something bad and frightening. But are people who have AIDS like this?
The poster uses little words to get is message across, only a small print at the bottom that translates to : "Without protection, you are making love to AIDS. Protect yourself", and itself could be considered propaganda as you could argue that while bringing awareness to AIDS it is also showing people who have aids in a bad light. Yeah they may have AIDS, but is having sex with them the same as having sex with a scorpion?
I personally feel that the intention of the poster is good, as it is bringing AIDS into the light in a way that people will remember, but at the same time, is saying that people who do have AIDS are poisonous, dangerous and essentially walking death. It reminds me of the old AIDS campaigns of the 80's which described it in such a way that made people believe that even being in the same room as an AIDS sufferer would be enough to pass on the disease.
References -
- http://www.wired.com/table_of_malcontents/2007/05/french_aids_cam/
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