Vandals Attack Canadian Salon Over Battered-Woman Ad

       The owners of a hair salon in Canada have received death threats following an ad campaign featuring battered women, with a promise of making them look good again.
      The Daily Mail reports that Fluid Hair in Edmonton has been vandalized, as people are outraged that it would dare to use domestic violence to advertise its services.
Graffiti was found Thursday morning (Aug 25th  )on the back entrance of the Fluid hair salon. Lavender paint was splashed across the door. A message stenciled on paper and pasted to two back windows read, "This is art that is wrongly named violence, that was violence that was wrongly named art." The two sections were connected by a hot-pink arrow.
       The salon came under fire this week over an ad from February depicting a woman, elegantly dressed, sitting on a couch with a black eye. A man stands behind her holding a necklace. The ad's slogan reads, "Look good in all you do."

"Somebody had spilled paint and spray painted, and glued offensive messages to the windows of the salon," in addition to the death threats and hate mail, said Edmonton police Sgt. Rick Evans.

      The salon went so far as to comment on one of the ads on its Facebook page, saying the model is the "hottest battered woman I’ve ever laid my eyes upon."
       Salon owner Sarah Cameron said she doesn't see anything offensive in the ads, that she considers them art.
"It might strike a chord, but as the way our society and community is getting, we keep tailoring everything because everyone is getting so sensitive," she said.
"Anyone who has a connection or a story behind anything can be upset or have an opinion. We are not trying to attack anyone. We wanted to push limits," she said, adding, "You see the picture, you think it’s a nice photo and then you see the controversy. We just like art, and it’s also objective."
But a coordinator at a local women's shelter found nothing artistic about it.

"It glamorizes domestic violence. The ad is disturbing and chilling," said Jan Reimer of the Alberta Council of Women’s Shelter. "They may have had the best of intentions, but I don’t think they thought it out much in terms of what the message is. It seems like this is an ad for domestic violence."

Related articles

• Hair salon vandalized in wake of controversial ad (thestar.com)
• Vandals attack Edmonton salon over battered-woman ad (canada.com)
• Domestic Violence Beautified? (hudabeauty.com)
• Edmonton hair salon's black-eyed ad draws fire from women’s groups (theglobeandmail.com)