NO ONE IS SAFE? What's the Message of this Billboard?

NO ONE IS SAFE   NO SOUL IS SAFE    NO ONE IS SAFE

NO SOUL IS SAFE   NO ONE IS SAFE   NO SOUL IS SAFE

NO ONE IS SAFE   NO SOUL IS SAFE   NO ONE IS SAFE

These are the words, written large and unavoidable, in two different movie ads right now. 

Both use disturbing imagery to support their copy.  Both are on huge billboards along the daily school drive.  Universal’s marketers made sure they bought up all the outdoor space near the office so the big bosses would see it on their drives to work.  Which means that the campaign for Safe House, with its tag of “NO ONE IS SAFE” is everywhere in our neighborhood, and we pass that powerful, negative message at least 20 times a day.

I hesitate to mention any more billboards.  In fact, given reaction to my last piece, most would counsel me to stay far way from commenting upon outdoor advertising of any kind for quite awhile.  But weeks of passing this message on boards, bus sides and benches have left me with at least three hundred inescapable negative impressions at this point.  So is it safe to say there’s a problem here? 

There’s more than one problem, actually. 

The closely cropped black and white image of an intense-looking African American man (actor Denzel Washington, who is not ID’d in many versions of the ad) with NO ONE IS SAFE emblazoned across his face seems to play quite directly to racial bias. And a fairly strong case could be made that it’s a curious composition to be using in an election year with an African American male incumbent.

Yet putting racism and Obama-bashing aside (heavy-lifting I know), what is really going on here, in the name of selling tickets, is fear mongering.  The purposeful cultivation of fear is so pervasive in our culture now; we mostly just accept that it must be true, that we live in generally awful, horribly violent and scary times.  We are bombarded with those negative themes everywhere, not just in the relentlessly ugly mine fields of “news” but in our entertainment marketing too. 

But the facts don’t support it.  Harvard Professor, respected researcher and best-selling author Steven Pinker writes persuasively in his latest book “The Better Angels of our Nature”, that our world is far less violent now than it has ever been.  And our own LAPD has the impressive statistics to prove it.

Yet what we believe often has more power than statistics, and when we are literally surrounded by the words NO ONE IS SAFE that becomes our reality. 

The fact is fear mongering is a time-honored sales tactic. Everyone one from parents to religion to politics to Universal has used it to great effect.  But it is not something to shrug off.  Growing a thicker skin just disconnects us further.

The cumulative effect of all that fraudulent fear matters.  It’s more than just a movie ad that comes and goes.  Or yet another salacious lead story on the local “news."  If we allow ourselves to be saturated by this manufactured anxiety, the quality of our lives is diminished.  Another researcher’s findings always stayed with me.  He said our sense of well being can be measured by how many positive, casual interactions we had daily in our neighborhood. I can’t help but believe the converse is true as well, and after running the NO ONE IS SAFE gauntlet yet again today, I have to say I feel it.

Don’t get me wrong.  The Safe House ad is well made, provocative and compelling. And I love a good action-thriller.  The movie bows today and given the size of the campaign, will most likely have a decent opening weekend.  With my ticket purchase part of the final tally. 

Still, I can’t help wishing my awareness of the picture did not come at quite such a high cost to our community’s peace of mind.

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