Violence is certainly eye catching,

But is it really anything new?

Trigger warning.

A little more than a week ago, Courtney published this article on an ad put out by Do Something to create awareness about the frequency of domestic violence in the lives of teenagers.  Now, the Brits have their version .

(Note this video contains graphic violence.)

The ad was sponsored by Women’s Aid , which is a UK national charity "working to end domestic violence against women and children."  So as part of their campaign, they received the pro-bono help of director Joe Wright and actress Keira Knightley.

As the BBC describes it,

The two minute TV and cinema ad, for the charity Women’s Aid, shows the star being beaten by her partner after she returns home from a film set.

[…]

As the camera pans out, the location is revealed to be an empty film set, where 24-year-old Knightley cowers on the floor as the beating continues. A strapline reads: "Isn’t it time someone called cut?"

The ad uses an interesting play between reality and the film.  I use the word interesting hesitantly.  Knightley says in the film, as the beating begins, "This wasn’t in the script, I didn’t agree to this."  First, let me acknowlege the strength of that point.  That line makes a wonderful point that no abused partner signed up for the abuse.  They didn’t ask for it, agree to it, nor do they have control over it.  Secondly, it makes the point that even when we’re watching violence on a screen, that a reality of that image would be much different.

But at the same time, how many times has Knightley agreed to participate in depictions of violence against women in films?  She typically plays some form of a feisty woman, and is often shown overcoming or surpassing some kind of physical attack.  I tend to like her performances, though I wouldn’t note her as particularly feminist in her choice of roles.  So are my expectations to high, or is this pretty hypocritical?

I think highly of Knightley’s choice to volunteer her time to raise awareness about an issue that is killing 2 women per week, according to Women’s Aid (I’m assuming that is a UK statistic).  But isn’t their some sick irony between the way violence against women is disregarded in film, and the fact that this group chose to use the exact same Hollywood-style medium to promote their point?  We see this kind of violence on TV all the time .  Why is this group’s shocking use of violence different than any Lifetime channel horror films or Spike TV’s action shows?

What do you think of the ad?

Via this article published by the BBC .