Fruits are invading Concordia—pear and peach posters hang in the metro, while pineapples are stripping in videos all over social media. One can only hope the fruit flies speed up the decaying process, but there’s no clear end in sight.
In case you have no idea what we’re talking about, Concordia’s Sexual Assault Resource Centre (SARC) recently launched a new awareness campaign regarding the very serious issues of consent and sexual assault. At the heart of the campaign are three videos, each featuring fruits in a variety of potential scenarios.
While we applaud the Sexual Assault Resource Centre for their vital and amazing services they provide to our student population, we can’t hold our tongue here—we don’t appreciate these videos. They trivialize sexual assault, and present the issue in a childish form.
One video features two pears sleeping together in one bed. One pear awakens and starts to engage the other pear intimately to their dismay. The pear susceptible to this incident then rolls away, and a statistic pops up on screen in a pleasant pink hue.
Our own university shouldn’t soften ‘trigger-warning’ subjects, but represent them accurately enough. These videos shouldn’t captivate a seven-year-old.
Most cases of sexual assault on campus occur within the first eight weeks of the semester, according to statistics from SARC. So this video is definitely timely, but are we not able to handle a serious campaign? Shouldn’t real people in real settings be featured when discussing an all too common social issue? As university students, we are on the road to becoming adults—we’re not looking to be babied.
We are not the only ones who have an issue with this video either. Last week, a post appeared on Spotted Concordia slating the videos, saying consent is all about communication, yet the video features no verbal communication whatsoever. Very odd indeed.
While we absolutely need to keep talking about these issues, the university needs to create content to better represent our reality—not some playful animation that belongs in a Saturday morning cartoon.
