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A BlackComixBook.com Post: WHY DOES CONDOMAN TALK FUNNY?
June 30, 2010
F-booker Johnny Splendor was kind enough to point us to this article on the Huffington Post about The Funniest Sex Education Posters of All Time. The Huff Post caption for this one is “Does Condoman Know What Words Mean?” because Condoman is saying… well, you just read it, you know. Sort of funny/odd turn of phrase there.
Except, according to the Post’s source Condoman was “created by the Commonwealth Department of Community Services and Health in Australia in 1991″ as part of ” part of a broader prevention campaign that targeted younger Aboriginal audiences.”
So, I don’t know about y’all, but I was not hanging out with any young Abroginal peoples in Australia in 1991. Is “Don’t be shame be game” like in keeping with some 90s Aboriginal slang? Or is this a straight up “Sweet Christmas” moment, like that Huffington Post caption seems to suggest.?
The Commonwealth Dept. website calls Condoman “one of Australia’s most iconic health messages,” but “iconic” doesn’t really answer the question for me, of whether or not that dude’s an accurate portrayal of indigenous people’s manner of speaking.
What does answer that question is this post on the House of Blackstar website which states:
Condoman was originally conceived and developed in 1987 by a group of Indigenous Health Workers in Townsville… Condoman has been an important foundation and ongoing condom social marketing tool throughout Australia and overseas. As a testament to the original campaign the catch phrase of ‘Don’t Be Shame Be Game’ in relation to condom use is still used within particular Indigenous communities in Australia.
Now, I must admit, I was amused by the Condoman poster juxtaposed with the Huffington Post caption at first. “Does Condoman Know What Words Mean?” is pretty chuckle-worthy when the poster is taken completely out of context, read in an American context as an American work. But it’s not American. If this is just how Aboriginal folk in Australia speak, as seems to be the case, the caption amounts to little more than “Foreigners talk funny.”
Condoman and his still-popular catchphrase returned in 2009:
Condoman 2009
You can read the ’09 comic for free online. It’s actually quite a good PSA comic, solid comics art in a sort of a Top Cow studio style. Condoman is like this spirit of safe sex that inspires people to pass out condoms to their friends. I say check it out. I also say, if you’ll allow me the pleasure: Don’t be shame dear readers, be game. Practice safe sex yo.
The aim of the 2009 Condoman campaign is to introduce ‘…a generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who are not familiar with the original campaign, and have not lived through the early years of HIV & AIDS in Australia, especially before the introduction of better treatments.’ Click the above image to download it as a pdf that you an make into a keychain.
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This blog post was originally posted on the official blog for our book BLACK COMIX: AFRICAN AMERICAN INDEPENDENT COMICS, ART & CULTURE. Check it out at BlackComixBook.com.
