If Jerusalem is going to be built “in England’s green and pleasant land”, it’s going to be built in bubble wrap. Before entering, indeed before getting close, we will be warned repeatedly of the metaphoric city’s sharp metaphoric edges and its slippery-when-wet metaphoric steps. Just in case.

We will be told to get there by driving slowly, not smoking, not drinking, definitely not doing drugs and under no circumstance by discriminating – even for comic effect (unless it’s towards the Germans… or the French).

It is indeed impossible to avoid that which has become more British than whining: the Public Service Announcement. Regardless of your medium of choice, you will come across someone who feels you should be told what is dangerous and what is not, what is acceptable social behaviour and what is not and exactly what kind of person you are if you don’t toe the accepted social line. It’s all frightfully black and white.

Of course most PSAs carry important messages, but do we really need to be told them? It seems as superfluous as the Ten Commandments – did God really think we needed to be told that killing was bad? Surely that is a given?

But, just in case we forget, images of dead children, crying babies, dying patients, violence and blood constantly bombard us, over which we hear the big booming voice: “Thou shalt not drive excessively fast and run over small children” or “Thou shalt not do drugs, become a crack-whore and spread HIV”. Soon we will hear “Thou shouldst breathe.”

The latest PSA, which hit the media yesterday, is for Women’s Aid and is telling us (I think) that beating women is really not very cool. What makes this campaign so newsworthy is that it stars Keira Knightley and was directed by Joe Wright (Atonement and Pride & Prejudice).

In the two-minute film, Cut, Knightley is beaten by an abusive boyfriend after she arrives home from a day of filming. As Knightley gets beaten, the camera pans out to reveal an empty set with the tagline, “Isn’t it time someone called cut?”

In a statement on the charity’s website, Knightley said, “I wanted to take part in this advert for Women’s Aid because while domestic violence exists in every section of society, we rarely hear about it.”

The ad is particularly violent and has caused outcry from various communities. Most newspapers have called it “shocking”. Shocking? Perhaps to the Amish, otherwise this violence is bland, derivative, and passé when compared to the violence we see every day in the media, both fiction and non-fiction. It is no different to any other movie where a woman gets badly beaten, the PSA is simply attaching the signifier “real life” to its representation.

It wasn’t that long ago that Knightley was glamorising violence. Knightley was cast in Domino where the violence against her beauty was created as erotica. In this PSA, the violence against her beauty is meant to shock us. Into doing what, I am not entirely sure. And how do we differentiate the two?

Violence, as in Domino, is used in cinema and television as entertainment – as one of its main attractions, being either the star or a significant backdrop. So, why does Women’s Aid believe that Cut will not simply entertain? It is a beautifully shot, directed and stylised bit of cinema with fine acting and, of course, that all-important “action”. It is a very fictionalised representation of a very real issue – so much so that it is questionable whether the makers of the PSA have created enough of a “reality buffer” that forces us to make its “real-life” signifier influential enough in our dissemination of the piece. It is always going to be fiction. This, of course, somewhat ironically, makes the violence in the PSA simply gratuitous – the message could have been more effectively disseminated without it.

The message itself is, indeed, as ambiguous as the pay-off line. Exactly who is being targeted with this PSA? Is it targeted at me and the majority of other citizens who don’t need to be told beating a woman is a grotesque abomination? In which case, they are preaching to the converted. Is it targeted at men who beat women? In which case, I cannot see what the advert is actually saying to these people – they are surely not shocked by the violence as they see it every time their fists connect with their “girlfriend’s” jaws. Is it not perhaps even encouraging them? Perhaps the PSA is targeted at family members, friends and neighbours of abused women, encouraging them to speak out. Which, again, is not what the message seems to be. Just what the take home is, I am not sure. Yes, it asks us to donate £2 per month to “help save lives”. But, how is my £2 going to help?

The strategy the advert uses of blending fiction with reality is a dangerous one. By attempting to create reality and hence bring the issue of domestic violence in to our own realities through fiction is woefully ambiguous and a problem heightened by using a star in the lead. The advert’s ending, by returning to a film set, and the pay-off line, reaffirm the fictionalisation of the act and hence fictionalises the issue.

Of course the issue is not fiction and domestic violence is very real, with horrendous consequences. According to the website for Women’s Aid, two women are killed by a current or former partner in the United Kingdom in an average week. But I just don’t know what Women’s Aid are saying through Keira Knightley, or exactly what they want us to do about it.

Maybe, like so many PSAs, it is just reminding us that evil exists. That people are not very nice and that our actions have consequences. Personally, I think we know all this already – which allows me to appreciate Cuts’, cinematic beauty (more than its messaging). Anyone close to domestic violence, however, will, I think, simply be nauseated. Bring on Jerusalem.

You can view Cuts here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt7JZSrDJA8