By Coral Lin
MTV International's latest Staying Alive campaign for AIDS/HIV awareness results in a series of short films that're delightfully instructive. And we've got them all.
STAYING ALIVE SHORT FILMS
Buat Bodoh
Play Safely
Needle Spot
Ninja Spot
Safe Sex for Women
In our ever-expanding global world of today, the AIDS/HIV virus has quickly risen to become the leading cause of death worldwide. With about 6000 new infections per day among 15-24 year olds, 62% of which are girls, most victims do not even realize that they carry the virus and remain oblivious to the risks of the deadly disease because of their lack of information.
Armed with the fact that a cure remains to be found and nothing else can be done except prevention-through-knowledge, MTV International launched the Staying Alive campaign in 1998, which provides information on HIV/AIDS prevention and protection and encourages young people to fight the stigma associated with it. Through productions of major concerts, public service announcements (PSA), various programs and documentaries, Staying Alive promotes awareness, involvement and tolerance for HIV/AIDS.
This year, the winner for the PSA competition (themed "Women, Girls and HIV/AIDS") was the entry entitled "Buat Bodoh" (Just Pretend), produced by 23-year-old Muhammad Zhariff b Afandi and Chi Too of Malaysia. The black-and-white video is a short but candid glimpse into the world of the Malaysian youth growing up under a system that refuses to talk about sex because it is considered “a sin.” The video depicts the straightforward words and close range headshots of a young Malaysian woman, who represents the voice of her generation. In a society where sex is considered taboo, people pretend that sex doesn't occur, that teenagers are not sexually active. Yet, it is precisely this sense of denial that HIV/AIDS feeds off of. The young woman slyly admits that many of them do in fact, engage in sex but because no information concerning safe sex is provided, their risk of contracting the virus increases significantly. Talking almost nonchalantly as if she expected nothing else, the young woman's words are accompanied by an incessant, rhythmic pounding of the bass, giving the powerfully contrasting sensation of having her offhand comments drilled repetitiously into your mind. As the young woman says, “nobody cares anyway, what can we do?” All they can do is to “keep pretending.”
The runner-up in the video category was submitted by producers Maciej Gorski and Mike Freedman from the UK. Their video, entitled “Play Safely,” depicts a simple, two-dimensional drawing of a girl kicking around a football (equivalent to soccer in the U.S.). The sport presents a clever parallel to sex and HIV, spotlighting as well, the ever-present association of football being a male sport. The video's depiction of a girl playing football lends itself to the idea that women are gradually entering the sport in increasing numbers, the parallel being that women are also becoming increasingly at risk for HIV infection, due to possible additional factors such as violence and inequality. By having the ball morph into a globe of the world, the video points out the fact that HIV/AIDS has now become a worldwide problem.
Other issues -- such as condom usage and other ways of contracting the virus -- are dealt with in the short clips, “Needle Spot,” which informs viewers that HIV/AIDS is spread just as easily through needles as it is through sex, “Ninja Spot” and “Safe Sex for Women.” “Ninja Spot,” created by MTV China directs its message, in particular, to young men, promoting the idea that strong men can learn to restrain their desires -- at least until they obtain a condom. The ninja, which means in Chinese “the person who endures,” can only become a true ninja master if he can learn to withhold from sex until he gets a condom. Similarly, “Safe Sex for Women” also advocates condom use through a collection of comments and opinions voiced by a variety of young women.
To further increase awareness of HIV/AIDS in new ways, MTV premiered a new global HIV/AIDS awareness campaign, Save the Humans, which was written and directed by Georgie Greville from MTV US and commissioned by Staying Alive. Utilizing computer-generated animation through a series of four PSA's, the campaign presents a cast of animal characters who have assembled in a United Nations-style boardroom to discuss the global threat of HIV/AIDS. Fable-like, almost akin to Disney, the animation nevertheless imparts a tinge of youthful humor into a satirically dire situation. Presenting enough facts to get its message through, the campaign still manages to ridicule human nature and our apparent inability to extricate ourselves from the mess we've created.
With HIV/AIDS continuing to be such a current worldwide problem, the education of young people is increasingly being seen as a viable start to altering the course of the epidemic.
For more information, go to www.Staying-Alive.org
Published: Thursday, March 10, 2005
