The Power of One: Confessions of a Cultural Vigilante
I#146;ll never forget the day I decided to become a #147;cultural vigilante.#148; I was driving with my two little boys in the back seat. My eldest son, then 7 years old, tried out his new reading skills on a billboard we passed.
#147;Look, Mommy,#148; he said. #147;It says, #145;Get your butt in here.#146;#148; He and his 5-year-old brother tittered at the language. They were not allowed to use vulgar language at home, yet here on the street, it hit us smack in the face.The billboard was intentionally provocative. It revealed a bare-bellied young woman with jeans unzipped halfway down. I was incensed. I felt that this kind of advertising was an assault not only on my children#146;s innocence, but also on the standards of decency that our culture once adhered to. Over the years, we have become accustomed to increasingly explicit and coarse images and slogans from magazines, radio, television, movies, and retailers. We cannot erase what we have seen or heard. A steady diet of this kind of rubbish desensitizes us and robs us of our civility, bit by bit. That day I began to wonder, why were we not as concerned with first-hand cultural pollution as we were with second-hand smoke? I decided to take a stand. I called the retailer responsible for the billboard and complained about the image and wording. Though prepared for resistance, I was happily surprised to hear that others, too, had registered their protest, and that the entire ad campaign would soon be scrapped. In the five years since this incident, I have succeeded in getting many offensive billboards removed from my community. The advertisers have ranged from soft-porn self-promoters and phone sex lines to others so vulgar that it boggles the mind that anyone thought it clever. The most recent example was a billboard for a sports radio station that displayed the clothed backsides of four males, all of whom were unzipping themselves in order to urinate.
Additionally, I gave the name and number of the person responsible to business managers whose stores faced the billboard. That one came down in less than one week. It is often easier than people think to get these offensive ads removed. Most billboards feature the name of the sponsoring outdoor media company at the bottom. From there, the phone book is your guide. On occasions when I couldn#146;t be sure about a number or company name, my city councilwoman#146;s office helped me hunt down the information. I have found that a polite but firm phone call or letter with a rational explanation of my feelings usually gets results. When I call, I am patient and listen to the other side. I don#146;t expect people to snap to attention just because I#146;m unhappy, but I don#146;t back down either. In the end, most people have a hard time defending blatant raunchiness for general public consumption.
Violent images are also a big problem. I wrote to the vice president of a national chain of bowling alleys protesting the violent video games in their facilities. Just days later, the V.P. called me back to thank me for my letter, promising to share it with other executives at their next meeting. During a lengthy conversation, he also noted that the company had already removed what they deemed the most objectionable games.I#146;ve also lobbied by phone, letter, or e-mail, to other companies and media outlets, explaining why I felt their seamy material harms us all. Obviously most will not change their campaigns or programs because they hear from me.
But when enough people speak up, change will happen. Most respectable businesses don#146;t want to get a bad rap, and companies know that for every one person who bothers to call or write, hundreds more were offended by what they saw.I#146;m never deterred when I am told, as often happens, #147;No one else has complained about this. You#146;re the only one.#148; Even if it#146;s true, I tell them, it doesn#146;t mean I#146;m wrong. But imagine that it is true, that I am the only one who calls. I still get results more often than not. What a powerful testimony to the difference each and every one of us can make in our own communities!
Judy Gruen is the author of
Carpool Tunnel Syndrome: Motherhood as Shuttle Diplomacy
(Champion Press, 2002)available in Dr. Laura's Reading Corner. This article originally appeared in Woman#146;s Day magazine.
