Stick And Stone's May Break Your Bones But Words Will Never Hurt Me

Ever heard of the phrase “Stick and Stone’s may break your bones but words will never hurt me”? Although this quote may be popular, words do hurt. Mentally they can affect someone just as much as physical pain. Generally when we think about domestic abuse, we usually think about physical abuse and ignore verbal abuse. However domestic verbal abuse is just as impactful as domestic physical abuse. A Singaporean PSA awareness campaign ad against domestic verbal abuse shows an image of half an arm coming out of the man’s mouth punching his significant other in the face. At the bottom of the ad the words “Verbal abuse can just be as horrific” are bolded and next to the text is the campaign’s contact information. The Singaporean PSA campaign effectively …show more content…
Contrast is effectively used to highlight the emotions that are shown on the woman’s face. By using a lighter gray on the visual, it draws the reader 's eyes from the punch to the victim 's face to focus on her pain The viewer can also compare the woman’s face to the man’s face. The woman is significantly lighter than the man’s darker grey face. This contrast between the two faces shows that the purpose was not intended to focus on the abuser. The woman’s face is the main focus of the ad, and the light reveals the effects of domestic verbal abuse on her. The angle of the ad helps the viewer look at the full picture and see what is really going on in the scene. The viewer can see that the man has more dominance over the woman who seems to be playing a submissive role. If one were to look at the ad directly, they could see the man barely leaning over the woman. That slight lean towards the woman, magnifies his dominant role in the visual. As he is shouting at her, the woman shows a more obvious reaction by leaning back away from him. The audience perceives from this scene that domestic verbal abuse gives abusers a sense of false power while rendering the victim