Drinking and Driving Wrecks Lives: In The Summertime

 

Content warning: car wreck, dead bodies

Another summer is nearly behind us, but before it closes there's still time to pay tribute to one of the most emotionally-scarring presentations you were likely to encounter if you tuned into UK ad breaks in the early 1990s - the "In The Summertime" installment of the contemporary "Drinking and Driving Wrecks Lives" campaign (courtesy of Safety On The Move), which took advantage of the dubious advice given in the titular pop track to bring you a nightmarish vision of what you might go out and find along the roadside on a balmy summer evening, should that advice be taken too literally.

On the whole, the 1990s aren't renowned for being a particularly prosperous era for traumatic public information films - you could still catch them before BBC closedowns if you fancied a few pre-bedtime jitters, but given how rampant they were throughout the two preceding decades, it was seemingly an art form on the wane. The first half of the 90s did, however, see the continuation of "Drinking and Driving Wrecks Lives", the banner given to a series of particularly hard-hitting government ads created to put the spotlight on the potentially grave consequences of drinking and driving, which ran between 1987 and 1996. Few of the films focussed on the immediate horrors of the crash itself (although "In The Summertime" is one of those exceptions), the emphasis being squarely on the longer-term emotional wreckage faced by those affected, be they the victims or the perpetrators, the families of either, or the first responders. The idea was to give some sense of the far-reaching web of devastation brought about by an act born entirely out of thoughtlessness. Earlier films were very austere in form and tone, consisting largely of monologues delivered by bereaved friends and family, but as the campaign progressed they became a fair bit more creative, making clever use of perspective, overtly nightmarish imagery and even, on occasion, allowing room for a little morbid humor (as this ad demonstrates). The campaign is credited with doing a significant amount to alter public attitudes toward drink driving, which was formerly regarded as none too serious an offence - as is reflected in "In The Summertime", a 1970 hit for British rock band Mungo Jerry, which includes the line: "Have a drink, have a drive, go out and see what you can find." In the wider context, the song's lax attitude toward getting behind the wheel whilst intoxicated is celebrated as indicative of a Carpe diem philosophy, with the suggestion that those inclined toward drink driving are simply misunderstood. Insist Mungo Jerry: "We're not dirty, we're not mean/We love everybody, but we do as we please." (It should be noted that, by 1995, such an attitude would definitely not fly on popular radio - when the track was covered by Jamaican reggae artist Shaggy, the lyrics were updated to the more politically correct "I'm gonna drive and ride and see now what I can find".) The success of D&DWL in helping to challenge such perceptions is really nothing to be sneezed at, given that, try as they might, I'm not sure any equivalent campaign was ever quite able to have the same effect upon public attitudes toward speeding.

By the time "In The Summertime" debuted (circa 1992), the campaign was well-established enough to be trading on its own familiarity. You'll notice that the tagline, in this instance, has been modified to "In the summertime, drinking and driving wrecks even more lives", which marks it out as a response to a broader discourse. My understanding here is that drinking and driving warnings had become so characteristic a part of the winter festivities that it had led to a bit of a misconception in itself that it was something you only had to worry about at Christmastime (despite summer too being a peak time for such accidents). And while the idea of an ill-judged drive ruining multiple parties' Christmases is an undeniably upsetting one, there is something just as disconcertingly incongruous in depicting this roadside carnage as occurring in the broad light of day, amid the vitality and prosperity of the warm summer glow. "In The Summertime", which shows the patrons of a pub's beer garden blithely downing alcohol, before a bunch of them go out and meet their gruesome demise, is a brutal little exercise in disparate horror. It may also be the most thoroughly, gleefully sardonic creation the campaign had to offer.

 

 

"In The Summertime" is a fairly atypical addition to the D&DWL campaign, in that it's structured around the build-up to the devastating occurrence, with no focus whatsoever on the emotional aftermath (most D&DWL films would do precisely the reverse). It's also one of the few films in the line-up in which the drink driver themselves is shown to perish as a result of their actions - the more common approach was to have the perpetrator survive relatively unscathed so that they would have the privilege of getting to live with what they had done. In this case, the driver takes two passengers with him (or maybe just one - I'm not 100% sure if the long-haired blonde woman who waves farewell is meant to be riding along with them), but those passengers are implied to be somewhat complicit in the mindless indulgence that leads to their doom, judging by the collection of emptied beer glasses they leave behind them. Even the survivors who remain at the beer garden don't seem entirely innocent in this equation, being participants in the hedonistic culture that apparently sees no issue with the actions suggested by the accompanying track. Rather, the vibrant, outdoor atmosphere of that pub garden is presented as a kind of fool's paradise, always teetering on the brink of ruination. It's this lack of any obviously innocent party that lends "In The Summertime" a somewhat more blackly comic tone than any of its brethren - the intention isn't exactly to illicit laughs, but the interplay between the imagery and soundtrack has the ad wrapped up in a bitterly taunting irony that almost seems to relish the characters getting what's coming to them. Also unusually for a D&DWL film, which were generally upfront about their subject matter, it enters in seeking to disguise its intentions, with an atmosphere so warm and vibrant that the opening moments could easily be mistaken for an endorsement of the characters' hedonistic consumption - possibly a promotion for a brand of beer - although those well-versed in public information films might spot what's wrong with this picture ahead of the grisly twist, what with the increasing juxtaposition of characters waving goodbye with close-up shots of the beer glasses from which they've been swigging. The effectiveness of the ad rests in how it manages to use the naivety of the featured lyrics to its advantage, transforming it from a celebration of the carefree, sun-soaked lifestyle into something altogether more sinister.

 

"In The Summertime" also boasts what could arguably be described as the single most confounding moment in any D&DWL installment - really, just what is going on during that moment, twenty-four seconds into the ad, when we get a close-up shot of the grinning pub patron whose smile suddenly dissolves, alongside the music grinding to a moribund crawl? It's the pivotal moment, signifying the ad's sharp tonal shift, but it's not entirely clear what we are meant to assume has happened, in-universe, to knock that smile off of his face. Oh sure, it's revealed immediately afterward that two or three of his drinking buddies' bodies are lying further up the road in an ugly smoking wreckage, but he isn't looking at that - notice that he'd turned his gaze away from the direction his friends had travelled, having waved them goodbye and watched them veer out of sight. If he's reacting to the sounds of an off-screen collision (inaudible to the viewer), then funny how the blurred figure of the patron right behind him doesn't seem in the least bit perturbed. An alternative option would be to suppose that he is having a premonition, and that the ad's horrifying epilogue should be interpreted as a foreboding vision on his part, as all of a sudden his more prudent instincts take over and he remembers that drinking and driving maybe isn't such a good idea. What makes the moment especially quirky is that his expression doesn't exactly convey shock or horror, but rather vague irritation. It's a strange scene - at this point in its lifespan, D&DWL was willing to go to evermore disconcerting and experimental territory, but this particular instance feels more like a product of faulty execution than anything else. I recall it being a popular joke in the PIF community that what he was actually reacting to was the pub's jukebox breaking down (hence the music getting all jammed and corrupted), and that may as well be what's going on, albeit in a way that handily jibes with what's happening just down the road. The fazed look on his face indicates that a disturbance has occurred, bringing about an abrupt end to the summer celebrations. The slowing of the soundtrack - unsettling in its own right - substitutes for the collision itself, confirming our mounting suspicions that this ostensibly upbeat song is heralding something very cursed and twisted, and leaving us with only a deathly silence and a haunting inertia.

 

"In The Summertime" isn't quite as dark as it could have been - at the very least, it stops short of having the couple with the baby get inside the car - but the ending still packs a lingering punch that's all the more impactful for omitting the violent spectacle of the crash and focussing instead on the stillness of the aftermath, which seems eerily removed from the scenes of vibrant carousing that precede it. The bravado of the accompanying anthem stripped away, all we have to chew on is the vulnerability of own fragile forms - an image of mortality that seems all the more troubling for the picturesque beauty of the surrounding greenery. As for the Mungo Jerry track, thanks to this PIF I inevitably associate it with a creeping sense of impending catastrophe. So D&DWL succeeded in not only rebutting a contrary piece of popular culture, but completely rewriting its meaning.

 

Anyway, if you liked this write-up then lucky you, as I still have fourteen more D&DWL shorts to get through. What else did you think I had in store for you this Christmastime?