Is CNN’s thumbnail for a Steubenville-inspired Public Service Announcement sending the wrong message?
For days, I tried to avoid writing about this. I tried to run from Steubenville because, let’s face it, what is there left to say? Article upon article, blog upon blog has been written and re-written.
About rape.
About “rape culture”.
About what it does to our boys.
About what it says to our men.
And we’ve heard it loud and clear. Even us here at the Good Men Project. (Especially us here at the Good Men Project.)
But then I saw this. And it made me gasp in my cubicle. See what he does with passed-out girl. It looked like a spam ad that tries to connect me with “singles in my area.”
I knew what it was. I knew that it couldn’t be anything too vulgar or too graphic. So I clicked it.
It was a Public Service Announcement created by a student at the University of Oregon in response to Steubenville. And if we’re calling them like we see them, it was a cheap shot. I get it – headlines sell. But at what cost?
What message does this misleading headline send to our boys?
To our men? And even to our girls and women?
Do headlines and “rating raisers” like this promote “rape culture”?
Where do we draw the line?