Dave Barry made a similar observation about antismoking PSAs, objecting to one that had someone throw a diseased lung on a table. He pointed out that you could present any random internal organ and it would look just as bad: "This is what will happen to you if you keep smoking. Look! A perfectly healthy goat kidney!"
This was the big one for me too. The juxtaposed healthy versus unhealthy lungs resemble an uncooked chicken versus a roast chicken which was left in the oven for 30 minutes more than necessary.
The antismoking PSA that made the strongest impression on me, by far, was the one that showed a grandfather encouraging a baby to take a step. Eventually, the baby starts walking, and rushes over to the grandfather.
And through the grandfather, who fades to translucency.
It wasn't just me; that PSA made enough of a splash that it was called out on Friends.
I've tried to find that PSA in the past, but with no success. Once I asked a friend if they could find it, and the response was "Oh, I know exactly the one you're talking about. I won't help you look for it. I hate that commercial and I don't want to see it again."
I note that the second comment is "This commercial was what made my father stop smoking." It's interesting to think about the balance between disturbing the smoking audience so strongly that they stop, and disturbing the non-smoking audience so strongly that they complain about being exposed to your traumatic imagery and imperil your funding.
There have been some Oceanic anti-speeding ads that had the same effect on people, apparently. There's one where time freezes right before a collision and the person at fault apologizes for the little boy he's about to murder. There's one where the driver is talking to the ghost of his friend who died in a car crash. There's one where the grim reaper spins a roulette wheel every time a driver makes a mistake at an intersection. There was one where they rewind time, nudge the speedometer slightly lower, and resume normal time, and a fatal accident (pedestrian hit by car) turns into a bruised leg.
Related, I was struck by a comment made by the respiratory specialist doctor Martin Tobin, during the George Floyd murder court case. He said less than 10% of smokers actually go on to get 'issues'. He was pushing back on the line that as a smoker, George Floyd was more prone to react badly to 'having a knee on his windpipe...' you know the rest.
I did rewind and listen again then look up what he was saying and indeed, my assumed knowledge of smoking was altered.
Apologies for my vagueness with 'issues', I don't want to under or over state what he said and right now I can't locate the exact sentence within the days of testimony.
For anyone curious, I found the relevant sentence. An astonishingly counterintuitive almost throwaway remark by a world's expert sent me on a deep dive on what else can and does cause lung problems. Dr Martin Tobin says it at 3h 02m 40s...
I am aware there is a lot of complexity (obviously) in why people develop lung cancer, or any illness for that matter, but within that assumption was smoking being far worse than it actually is. Reading further, and this may also seem obvious written out in this simple form, the cancer numbers for people in homes using coal burning for cooking food varies hugely depending on the coal. And that the incidence of lung cancers in 'never-smokers' is rising rapidly globally.
Thats what they do. Those lungs are fake, sold by medical supply companies. They just take a healthy pig lung and dye it black and burn holes in it for "tumors".
I'm pretty sure there is some of automated brigading, every post I make gets modded down for no reason. Why mod this down? It's just a fact that is easily verifiable. It had been voted up to 2 or 3, then very quickly went to 0. Very odd.
"These inflatable swine lungs have been stained realistically and then specially preserved in odorless, nontoxic solution that retains the texture and elasticity of fresh lungs."
Plausible deniability because it works.
As for the fishermen in that boat.. yeah.. totally innocent fishermen, and on that very spot they hit a 'school' of that one fish they were looking for, so they are fishing this 'school' and nothing else sinister going on keep walking (omitting commas on purpose)
