‘The Office’ & ‘Friends’ Characters Get Diagnosed With HIV In PSA Against Stigma
Image via IMDb
Canadian hospital Casey House, along with independent agency Bensimon Byrne, communications agency Narrative and digital agency OneMethod, has unveiled edited episodes of Friends and The Office for a campaign entitled #SmashStigma to shed light on the stigma surrounding HIV.
The Friends remake, renamed as Losing Friends, imagines Chandler finding out about being HIV-positive, and ultimately losing Joey who fears to stick by him. The PSA reveals the growingly strained friendship between Chandler and Joey, who spurts insensitive comments and moves out after being informed about the diagnosis.
In Casey House’s version of a The Office episode, the characters shun their colleague, Dunder Mifflin, after he discloses his HIV diagnosis. Titled as The Toxic Office, the five-minute clip follows Michael, who attempts to calm his co-workers down from terrorizing Dunder for his condition.
The campaign reflects client survey results, which found that 65 million respondents preferred for their favorite television characters to die instead of receiving HIV/AIDS diagnoses.
The team selected apt scenes from the shows, and rewrote the scripts to evoke conversations about HIV. They had voice impersonators to dub the character’s lines, as well as special effects replacing the original cast members’ mouths with lookalikes to read the lines.
Due to copyright issues, the Friends version has been taken down, though it’s currently visible through a reupload by Little Black Book.
Casey House previously hosted #SmashStigma popups, where a restaurant and a spa employed HIV-positive volunteers to confront society’s stigma.
Nearly 65 million North Americans would rather see their favourite TV characters die than diagnosed with #HIV #AIDS. Reflecting on yesterday’s launch of a courageous campaign to #smashstigma by @caseyhouseTO pic.twitter.com/jSrhKyRA3N
— Kirk LeMessurier (@kwlem) February 20, 2020
Today @caseyhouseto released never-before-seen episodes of Friends and The Office to start a global conversation about the power of pop culture to #smashstigma – watch at https://t.co/Kd9uVRHEzP pic.twitter.com/T9D37wQfia
— Do The Daniel (@dothedaniel) February 19, 2020
HEY FRIENDS! Today, @caseyhouseTO released never-before-seen episodes of Friends and The Office to start a global conversation about the power of pop culture to #smashstigma - check them out at https://t.co/oSvktoGQyV 👌🏻 pic.twitter.com/OWtrCGHake
— Courtney Conquers (@courtneyconquer) February 20, 2020
[via Times Colonist, cover image via IMDb]
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