March 20, 2007

“Captivity” Campaign is Nobody’s Fault

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mojo-photo-captivity.jpgLos Angeles area residents were not amused this week after billboards went up around the city featuring a young woman pictured in various unsavory scenarios including “Abduction,” “Torture” and “Termination.” The icky ads were part of a campaign for an upcoming horror flick called “Captivity,” but, garsh, turns out it was all a horrible mistake! The production company, After Dark Films, said that the “wrong files” were sent to the printer, who then apparently went ahead and just made a bunch of billboards without asking anybody, and besides, we were all in Las Vegas when it happened! After Dark CEO Courtney Solomon went so far as to issue a statement saying that he, personally, “wasn’t going to go with this campaign,” since it was “OTP,” which is Hollywood-speak for “over the top,” I can’t believe you didn’t already know that.

Anyone who’s ever worked at even the lowliest ad agency, production house, or print shop knows there is no possible way anything ever gets done without about 10,000 proofs, endless back-and-forths, and everyone from the board to the receptionist signing off. Whether they knew the campaign would immediately be taken down, or were just completely clueless, it’s hard to fathom how it could have actually been a mistake.

But, hooray! It turns out everyone, everywhere is wrong about everything: Solomon says that, sure, the movie has a woman in a cage, but really, it’s “about female empowerment.” So, parents everywhere, get your young daughters to LA, quick, so they can be empowered by the billboards before they’re taken down this afternoon!

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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