It's Time to Tell Your Kids about the Birds and the Bees. And AIDS [image 1]

It's Time to Tell Your Kids about the Birds and the Bees. And AIDS [image 1]

Contributor(s):
The History of Medicine Division. Prints and Photographs Collection
Brogan and Partners
Publication:
Brogan and Partners, [ca. 1989]
Language(s):
English
Format:
Still image
Subject(s):
HIV
Public Health
Genre(s):
Archival Materials
Posters
Slides (photographs)
Abstract:
This poster is part of a series of three that illustrate two common shifts in the themes of HIV/AIDS posters in the late 1980s and early 1990s: (1) targeting specific racial or ethnic communities by using different photographic subjects to personalize the disease; and (2) juxtaposing text and image to dispel myths about at-risk populations. The three children with similarly uneasy expressions could easily be advertising cough medicine or breakfast cereal. The viewer would likely be surprised to learn from the text that this is a public service ad for HIV/AIDS education. By using the images of attentive children, the posters challenge parents to overcome existing taboos, suggesting they have a responsibility to educate their children about HIV/AIDS. The message also normalizes the controversial advice offered by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop in his report on HIV/AIDS issued in 1986, which suggested that since education was the best and only strategy of prevention, and since HIV/AIDS was spread primarily through sex, school children should receive sex education. In this context, the expectant faces on the children alongside the imploring passage suggest that parents have a moral duty to educate their children.. NOTE: Slide of original poster image is blurry.
Copyright:
This item may be under copyright protection; contact the copyright owner for permission before re-use.
Extent:
1 pages
NLM Unique ID:
101584655X80 (See in Profiles in Science)
Profiles in Science ID:
VCBBGC
Permanent Link:
http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101584655X80
Archival Collection:
Visual Culture and Health Posters (Profiles in Science)