My response: The image of the girl with the gun and the girl with the book is ironic as it is used to show how a weapon of lethal capacity can be compared to a fairy tale book which could be banned for its arguably graphic themes. The book is used to protect as knowledge and the ability to read is and has done.
The visual elements used can be slightly comedic as the gun is far more dangerous than the book yet the book is banned.
Ashima response:
In the third PSA advert, we see a young black girl holding a copy of ‘Little Red Riding Hood,’ and a little white girl holding a gun. The text reads “One child holds something that has been banned in America to protect them. Guess which one.”
Initially, it is assumed that the advert means the gun, but ironically, it is the fairytale that is banned. The ‘reasoning’ behind the banning of the book is that she has a bottle of wine in her basket, which does not make it kid-friendly. The gun, however, isn’t banned, heightening the peculiarity of the situation. The irony, in this case, is that, to be very point-blank, is that although 15000 kids died in school shootings in the US in 2019, the guns are still not banned; while Little Red Riding Hood has harmed absolutely nobody, and still is illegal. Thus, the tone of the advert is sardonic, deliberately contradicting the meaning behind it.