PSA: Fragile Childhood

The PSA entitled Fragile Childhood, follows a group of children who are victimized and in some form, physically violated by their alcoholic parents. In the beginning, the identities of the children’s parents are unknown, however, several seconds into the PSA, the video reveals the embodiment of the parents who are depicted as sinister-looking monsters. Although the monstrous characters do not appear to be doing the children any harm, their terrifying appearance makes simple, parent-like actions such as doing up a seat belt and pushing children on a swing horrifying. While not obvious on the surface, the purpose of this PSA is to depict the reality that is corrupt families with parents who drink. The creators wanted to illustrate the notion
Firstly, in the smoking PSA seen in class, smoking adults were confronted by smoking kids. Upon being confronted, the adults immediately began to explain why smoking is bad for one’s health and that it is an activity unfit for a young person. In their explanations, they were hypocritical as they admitted their smoking habit was wrong, however, advised against smoking anyway. A similar message was shown in the Fragile Childhood PSA. The main similarity a part of both PSAs was that children were seen questioning the actions of adults. In Fragile Childhood, the children were not able to comprehend the actions of their parents, however, understood that the aggressive behaviour was wrong. This is similar to the way in which the children acted in the other PSA upon being told by the smoking adults that smoking is a bad habit. Like the smoking adults, the alcoholic parents went through their daily lives participating in their poisonous habits, oblivious to the effects that they were having on others, especially children. This goes to show that in both PSAs, adults were unaware of the lasting effects they were having on children and did not realize the extent of the damage that they were causing to their own bodies. Another connection I made to Fragile Childhood is the recent spark in creepy clowns sightings in southern United States and Canada. Beginning in South Carolina, the phenomenon in which individuals dress-up as clowns in order to prank, torment, or potentially harm young children, has quickly grabbed the attention of social media, with dozens of new clown sighting videos being uploaded daily. While clowns are often depicted as loving and funny individuals, this clown craze has perverted the clown’s positive image and has communities