New York, NY, September 9, 2000. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has apologized for using New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's face for their milk-mustache anti-dairy industry campaign "Got Prostate Cancer?"
But do they get it? PETA President Ingrid Newkirk told Giuliani on September 1 that the animal rights organization will immediately withdraw the "Got Prostate Cancer?" dairy parody ad featuring the mayor's image. She apologized for any distress the ad may have caused him. "What we do is intended to be provocative, not hurtful..." Newkirk wrote in a letter faxed to the mayor's office.
PSA Rising said August 29 [PETA Picks on Rudy Giuliani - That Sucks] that "The radical issue here is Rudy Giuliani's status as a man with cancer. They should have hired a model or found someone else with prostate cancer who wanted to get this message across."
We went much further than that but still not far enough. No one should try to put this message across in any style that mocks men with prostate cancer. Unfortunately it looks like this will happen.
PETA has found a face to continue the campaign. While the billboards in the dairy state of Wisconsin were being taken down and other ads were being canceled, PETA announced that Bill Maher, of ABC's Politically Incorrect, who supports their cause, was posing in Los Angeles for a PETA ad that will replace the controversial Giuliani parody. PETA will unveil the new ad in October on the opening day of the World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wis.
PETA says, "We profoundly apologize if our ad hurt Mayor Giuliani in any way. While we suspect that our ad gleaned more sympathy for the mayor than any previous event, our organization is all about stopping hurt, not causing it."
What they still don't get, it seems, is that their Got Cancer? (prostate, breast or any other type of cancer) is glib and hostile toward people with cancer. So it won't be effective as a way of reaching industry and people at large.
As we reported, the Milk Sucks campaign includes "Got Breast Cancer?" which uses a pink ribbon but does not show a woman with breast cancer [ http://www.milksucks.com/breast.html ]. We said, if they had used the face of political figure who has had breast cancer, they'd be chopped liver. Ditto, coem to think of it, if they had used a female model.
What's the real problem? Plain and simple, making a joke out of people with cancer. It's the slogan that does this, regardless of whose face is on the billboard. Got Cancer? is a bad joke -- as bad as jokes about cruelty to animals. PETA has a lot of good information but their message is still warped.
Related
Mayor Rudy Giuliani Has Prostate Cancer . . . and Memories of His Father April 27, 2000
Mayor Giuliani's Prostate Cancer -- the Entourage Jumps on the Bandwagon April 28, 2000.
Rudy Giuliani's Prostate Cancer and Other Men's Lives
Intimate disclosures against a backdrop of unhealed racial brutality and new health cuts May 11, 2000
PETA Picks on Rudy Giuliani - That Sucks. August 27, 2000.
CIPRO, Baysil & Anthrax: Chickens Home to Roost? Nov 2001
Poultry Scoop. Like your cows fed on chicken manure plus a dose of antibitoics? What goes around comes around in the darndest ways. 1997
Links and references
PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) Milk Sucks Campaign
