The campaign focused on men begins Thursday. The centerpiece is an ominous TV ad, narrated by actor Jon Hamm, that features a college party where a woman is blocked from leaving by one man before another intervenes. It will soon run in heavy rotation during college sports, before movies in theaters owned by Mark Cuban, on Xbox gaming consoles, and across social media. The push to include men in sexual assault prevention will also play a big role in an upcoming weeklong national awareness campaign on college campuses. Obama administration plans for the “National Week of Action,” running November 17-21, include visits to college campuses by “White House and administration officials,” a White House official said.
Jarrett told BuzzFeed News that the shift to outreach to men was a key component of the Obama administration’s ongoing “It’s On Us” anti-campus sexual assault campaign first announced by the president in September.
“Bystander involvement can be very important, and oftentimes men underestimate other men’s attitudes toward violence. They don’t understand that other men are opposed to violence, too,” Jarrett said. “So if they get the sense that it’s OK [to intervene] because everyone else around the room feels the same way you do, so the first person who gets up will inspire the next person to get up, and the next person and a next person. Because everyone is uncomfortable with it, but as a general rule men don’t know that.”
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