The XX Factor: What women really think.

This Doesn't Make Me Want to Vote

Why are pro-voting ads so frequently creepy? When seemingly oblivious celebrities express their views on the candidates themselves, the results can be entertaining or mildly insightful. But for some reason all of the stars' charm and charisma gets lost when they start standing up for our electoral system. These ads for Declare Yourself, which feature a gagged and sobbing Jessica Alba, Christina Aguilera, and Andre 3000 among others, are particularly frightening to look at. By the ads' logic, if I don't vote I'm essentially submitting myself to a brutal vigilante silencing technique, like having my mouth stapled or bolted shut.

Declare Yourself isn't alone in its tendency to threaten and alienate its audience despite better intentions. The "Vote or Die" campaign that began in 2000 promotes its own violent message, particularly when organizer P. Diddy gets aggressive or weirdly personal about the issues. Aguilera is actually a double offender in the scary ad game, having already taped this eerie display (those eyes! that smile!) for Rock the Vote last May. Not that Madonna's original Rock the Vote ads or Gwyneth Paltrow's stilted plug for absentee ballots were any more appropriate or appealing.

It's obviously important to get the MTV set involved in this election, and perhaps there's nothing better than a good shock to get this point across. The Declare Yourself ads' literal "use it or lose it" message is certainly attention-grabbing, but do these violent images really make people want to vote? They just scare the heck out of me.