In 2001, we got a gig re-doing the website for the sex ed program, Condomania. This led to a four year ride where we not only worked with a youth advisory committee of teens, but we kept one of them to work on all our projects!
David Ng (shown above) was only 14 when he got pulled out of a creative writing course to be part of this committee. Now he's on sabbatical in Cape Town getting his Masters in Gender Studies with a focus on international development.
Along the way, we created a female superhero (Luci Lubricant) to keep the already developed Condom Man company, redid their website with many bells and interactive whistles, and got a Canada Council Grant as the Planetahead Media Arts Collective. That's where David learned to edit, later directing the That's So Sexy PSA... and the rest is Hello Cool World history.
We made two short films with this grant: 5ensASIAN and Stereotypo.
When we made the short film Stereotypo, we were looking at gender scripts and double standards, and we found something interesting at the time. In 2005, when it came to advertising condoms on television in Canada, there were special constraints for condom ads. Just check out these quotes from the Television Bureau of Canada (TBC) website at the time:
Condom commercials must: "deal solely with the issue of disease prevention." Commercials must not:" make mention of contraception, make any comparative claims, promote casual sex and promiscuity."
This got us all riled up about the double standard that allows sex to sell everything... except safer sex.
But NOW, it seems like even the Television Bureau of Canada is READY FOR PLEASURE because these restrictions no longer apply!
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