I’ve been meaning to post this for some time.
The Indian Association for the Promotion of Adoption and Child Welfare, in conjunction with Olgivy & Mather, Mumbai have produced a set of adoption ads–Adoption. You will receive more than you can ever give—that can only be termed “disturbing.” (No, the picture to the left is not one of them!)
Olgivy and Mather should know better It’s not some trash outfit. I happen to be very big on advertising aesthetics and am probably one of the few people reading this who actually consider advertising an art form. I can spend a lot of time perusing magazines for ads, not articles. That no one seems to have noted that this campaign, which was a 2006 finalist in the London Arts competition, screams pedophila, surprises me. I’m probably naive.
These are ads that only a Matthew Mancuso could love. Too bad he can’t see them, but he’s in the slammer for the next few decades for forcing Masha Allen (latest Masha entry with links to earlier posts) to nurture him and his camera on a daily basis until the FBI caught him. Perhaps if Masha’s chief agency Child Promise, formerly known as Reaching Out Thru International Adoption, had picked up these ads it would still be in business.
An adoptee for every adult who needs one.
UPDATE 3/17/2008) : James Marsh has published his own blog on the ads: Girl’s Little Daddy
Wow, those ads are SO creepy!The whole concept that the kid is just there to fill the emotional needs of the adults, graphically depicted. They are upsetting to look at, so wrong in so many ways.
I can’t believe this won any sort of award or was made by a respectable agency. I think to most people the visual just screams “adoption is perverted”. Even without the pedophile piece, the giant kid holding the baby adult is a disturbing image. I bet NCFA wouldn’t touch this with a ten foot pole.
maryanne
Wow. I saw these a while ago somewhere and couldn’t believe my eyes. But I didn’t realize they were produced in conjunction with Ogilvy and Mather.
I too believe advertising to be an art form. It just blows my mind that these ads weren’t immediately consigned to the trash for the perverted monstrosities they are.
Something very rotten in the state . . .
Funny thing, Maryanne I thought the same thing. NCFA wouldn’t touch these. They have standards! I can only imagine what Bill would think!
‘Kids, the best purchase you’ll ever make.’
Seriously, anyone who thinks for one moment adoption is about altruism needs to look at this shit.
This is about how the kids can be used to bring ‘fulfillment’ to the adopters- just like the latest shade of lipstick, the mythical Lexus ‘under’ the X-mas tree, or ‘comfort foods’. It’s all about them, not about the kids.
Which all quite frequently is the reality at the core of what adoptive families are all too often built upon- not ‘waiting kids’ in foster care, or kids in genuine need- or even about the kid’s needs, but instead about the adult’s needs.
So many adopters come to it with their own saga of infertility and having tried everything else, multiple rounds of IVF etc, convinced that only having a child will ‘make them whole’/’make them happy’.
These ads are the very embodiment of such.
‘Buy a child- see, you CAN buy someone to love you forever.’
Vile.
No asshole consumers, kids are not there to make YOU feel better, you’re supposed to be there to help them.
Reminds me of an ‘adoption datebook’ I stumbled across, filled with sappy halmarkesque adoption quotes. One, from an adoptive mother stood out for me.
I don’t have it in front of me, but it was along the lines of how others around her feel the adoption was an act of altruism, when for her it was so much more an act of selfishness- although selfishness isn’t the word she used.
The notion of the adopted child holding and caring for the parent as if the roles were somehow reversed- a suggested by the ad image of the large child holding the small parent is clearly insane.
Particularly so when so many adopted kids come to their new adoptive homes with serious life experiences of their own, be that ‘orphanages’ or past neglect, incest, etc.
Think of that image in that context- an adopted child who had perhaps suffered incest pictured as ‘caretaking’ for an adult. It’s not merely laughable- it’s insane.
Only people completely out of touch with the realities of adoption could fall for, or manufacture such propaganda.
So naturally, it’s award winning, and plenty of people fall for it.
I came over here, clicked on the links – and couldn’t find the offensive ads. Was the link taken down? Boo hiss – I wanted to see these!
E.Case
They’re still up. Try this: http://www.hemmy.net/2007/06/14/iapa-adoption-advertisement/
They really are very yucky. I am surprised at the source as well.