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Contents
The Grim Reaper Campaign and its Unruly Metaphor
HIV/AIDS: Perceptions and Policy in the 1980s
Defining Hidden Public Health Risk in the Grim Reaper PSA
HIV/AIDS: Perceptions and Policy in the 1980s
Although this time period is already well documented, it is useful to look back at specific milestones that illustrate the care and sympathy shown for the “innocent” victims, as well as the neglect and disdain shown for the “non-innocent” victims as a means of understanding the social stigma of HIV/AIDS. Many countries’ responses to HIV were to shove it under the rug. In the beginning of the epidemic, public health officials had dubbed AIDS, “gay cancer,” and later, “Gay Related Immune Disorder” (Donovan, 1997, p. 120). This associated HIV/AIDS and sexual orientation within the public mind. During Ronald Reagan’s US presidency, “the epidemic is viewed through central concerns of the political Right: trimming government-funded social programs, emphasizing personal responsibility and protecting citizens and society from the negative impacts of behaviors coded as immoral” (Padamsee, 2020, p. 1027). And, four years later, although President Clinton made promises about helping the gay community, some argue that his administration was just as neglectful as the ones before and not enough progress was made (Mckinney & Pepper, 1999, p. 75). Clinton’s “strategic silence” included not speaking on World AIDS day in 1994 and asking his Surgeon General to resign after speaking publicly about masturbation at a United Nations AIDS conference (McKinney et al., 1999, p. 82).
The Australian government knew that action needed to be taken and started work on the Grim Reaper PSA. By the 1980s, Australian public health communicators knew that fear appeals were effective, and, in fact, most PSAs used them, including commercials and print ads by the Australian Department of Transport (Stylianou, 2010, p. 11). No different, the Grim Reaper Campaign leveraged fear to engage public health. The campaign was able to convince thousands of Australians to get tested and opened the door for public discussion and funding for the AIDS crisis that was still being ignored around the world (Stylianou, 2010, pp. 12-13).
Follow-up interviews conducted by NACAIDS of 610 adults in Sydney and Melbourne eight weeks after the Grim Reaper campaign aired found that… 70 per cent thought that it had changed people’s behavior… 44 per cent said that they had personally changed their own behavior. (Stylianou, 2010, pp. 11-12)
New infections peaked in 1987, the year the Grim Reaper ad aired. Between 1987 and 1999, reported cases steadily dropped to its lowest point (McKenzie-Murray, 2012). Although the ad appears to have been effective, it has also been critiqued for confusing “memorability” for “efficacy” (Stylianou, 2010, p. 14). Other scholars have argued that, while unforgettable, the ad was still not informative enough and did not raise the viewers’ knowledge of AIDS (Rigby, Brown, Anagnostou, Ross, & Rosser, 1989, p. 158). Glowacki coins the term “health hyperbole,” which is helpful for conceptualizing the Grim Reaper ad in this regard. That is, the PSA encouraged panicking about an event with great confidence, vigor, and sincerity, which can be quite contagious. This hyperbolic rhetoric “can be baiting and evoke/embolden irrational or fallacious reasoning… is used to convey any combination of anger, distrust, skepticism, blame, conspiracy, nationalism, and misinformation” (Glowacki, 2020, p. 1960). While the ad effectively appealed to the fears of those watching, it can also be said that the PSA could have done so while serving public health better, and in ways more culturally responsible.