Deserving to die

The above ads are the brainchild of Laughlin/Constable ad agency right here in Milwaukee. Incredibly punchy, they go on a teaser-revealer mode… “Cat lovers deserve to die,” “the genetically privileged deserve to die,” “the smug deserve to die,” “the hipsters deserve to die, ”crazy old aunts deserve to die,” “the tattooed deserve to die”…. Only later did the answer come: “no one deserves to die” and signing with the client’s logo Lung Cancer Alliance.

 Before the revealer was done, the billboards stirred a riot with some of them vandalized or torn down. But the idea was that it’s not because you have cancer that you brought it onto yourself and therefore deserve to die. Some people are passive or second-hand smokers, or are simply unlucky, or… But you see, certain types of diseases have patients which deserve sympathy whereas others make the ones they have been inflicted upon pariahs. It’s time to equalize all cancer. Cancer is an “equal opportunity striker” – why should we be the ones to do an emotional hierarchy towards it?