Sexual Violence with the Birds and the Bees is a public awareness campaign designed to combat sexual violence. Launched in October 2016, it was developed by the government of Nova Scotia with help from high schoolers. Two animated videos and a few posters
were produced, all featuring anthropomorphic bird and bee characters.
Episode 1 takes place at a house party. A guy named Zach tries to take a drunk girl upstairs for sex, but his friend Knoll stops him and informs him that people can't consent when they're drunk. Elsewhere at the party, a guy tries to hit on a dancing girl and won't take no for an answer until a much larger girl steps in and intimidates him into leaving.
In episode 2, a guy has posted a lewd comment on a girl's photo. A second guy confronts him and shames him into deleting it.
Contains examples of:
- All Abusers Are Male: As with a lot of other PSAs of this nature, all of the instigators featured in these ads are male, and all of the victims female. Neither female instigators nor male victims are ever implied to exist.
- Briffits and Squeans: In one poster◊, the girl that Zach tries to get with has bubbles over her head, indicating drunkenness.
- Flintstone Theming: The setting is populated by anthropomorphic birds and bees, which is also reflected in its theming. Characters use terms like "buzzkill" and "fly the coop", Knoll's house has a bird perch over the front door, Kim is mentioned to be wearing a "bird bath suit" instead of a swimsuit, and — more subtly — another character mentions Kim's "breast" (as in the term used for a bird's chest) instead of her "breasts".
- Funny Animal: The birds and bees are humanoid in shape and stature — two arms, two legs, and five fingers on each hand. The bees have human-like mouths instead of mandibles.
- Hold Your Hippogriffs: In keeping with the birds-and-bees theming, some expressions swap out words for more thematic ones.
- The bee guy in the first episode proposes getting "bird-shit-faced" instead of "shit-faced".
- The large girl in the first episode calls the bee guy a "hive-hole" instead of an asshole.
- The bee guy in the second episode uses "egg[ing] your pants" to describe getting worked up instead of mentioning peeing/pooping one's pants or something similar.
- Hurricane of Puns: While the videos have a few bird and bee puns, one movie-style poster◊ takes the idea and runs with it — every credit and achievement is a pun, and it sports an MPA-style rating of "B" for "Buzzworthy".
- Insect Gender-Bender: The bee guy in the second episode has a stinger. In real life, only female bees have stingers, since they are modified ovipositors.
- Jerkass Realization:
- After Zach is made to realize that he was about to commit date rape, he looks down in shame, remarking that he feels like a "total woodpecker head."
- The bee guy in the second episode posts a lewd comment on a girl's photo. Another guy confronts him over it and impresses upon him how dickish and thoughtless he was, and as the bee guy is left standing alone afterward, his stinger retracts in shame.
- Questionable Consent: Zach is about to go to bed with a girl who is so drunk, she can barely stand without support. Knoll points out that she's too drunk to consent.Zach: She's totally into it.
Knoll: Doesn't count when you're wrecked. Hammered equals date rape. - Running into the Window: At the party, a guy walks into a sliding glass patio door with a thump and a loud grunt.
- Slogans: Each video and anti-sexual-violence poster ends with the phrase: "We all have a role in ending sexual violence."
- Visual Pun: The campaign is designed to educate about sexual violence, so all the characters are birds and bees as a reference to "the birds and the bees", the euphemism for sexual education.
- World of Funny Animals: The only characters seen are anthropomorphic birds and bees.
