Planet Video print ad recreating a scene from ‘The Shining’ too violent for the ASB
A print ad for DVD, video and music store Planet Video which recreated a scene from Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror film ‘The Shining’ has been deemed too violent by the Advertising Standards Board.
The ad, which appeared in the West Australian ‘Seven Days’ magazine and in the paper’s ‘The Wire’ section in September, depicts two girls in the aisle of a video library dressed in matching outfits and covered in blood with the tagline ‘You see it all at Planet Video’.
The ad watchdog said “that the image, when presented as a print advertisement in a television guide or in proximity to children’s cartoons in a paper is likely to cause a level of alarm to children and that other readers would not necessarily be expecting to come across graphic images such as this”.
A complaint to the ASB said: “I am very very concerned at the effect this awful picture would have on any young people in what is a family magazine.”
Planet Video defended the ad, telling the watchdog: “Planet Video has for decades been a video library specialising in cult, classic, festival and horror films. The image used in the advertisement was a reproduction of a famous scene from Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror film “The Shining” and is typical of the type of film people come to our store to see. The two young women in the ad are dressed as the Grady sisters from “The Shining”, an iconic image that is recognisable by many people with an avid interest in film.”
While a minority of the Board considered the advertisement was relevant to the video store and “that in connection with the promotion of the store, the image itself was iconic and immediately recognisable to people who would be likely to purchase or hire from the store”, the majority of the board believed that “people seeing the image in the guide would not necessarily be familiar with the movie that the image is derived from and that the depiction itself is graphic in nature and likely to frighten young children”.
The Board did note that the “image was partially relevant to the shop promoted” however it concluded that it “did not justify the inclusion of strong graphic material that would be likely to alarm some viewers”.
Planet Video are currently modifying the advertisement to create a “fake blood free” version to be used in family friendly publications.
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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It says a lot about our society when ads like this are being pulled because “won’t somebody please think of the children” while you can no longer sit down with your kids to watch a game of footy without being exposed to dozens of gambling ads.
Which has more of a long-term negative impact?
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Context is everything. I like the ad, but I wouldn’t want my young kids seeing it.
And I’m not sure why Planet Video thought “relevance” was an argument in defense of the ad. Imagine a condom manufacturer running a sexually explicit ad and arguing “Well, people who buy our product generally use it when they are having sex, so…”
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@AH: Valid point. I have nothing against gambling either – provided people do it responsibly and as a form of entertainment – but I’d pull gambling ads from TV too (during “kids” hours).
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There’s a company still retailing dvd’s and cd’s???
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