College Humor Is Using A Bear To Get Bros To Stop Dismissing Sexual Violence

Would you care more about college sexual assaults if they were bear attacks?

A new public service announcement from the White House's "It's On Us" campaign asks "What If Bears Killed One In Five People?"

The video, created by College Humor, plays off the statistic that one in five female students will experience sexual assault by the time they graduate college. College Humor shows several guys hanging out in a garage, when Rob Riggle's character discovers there's an angry bear just behind a door.

One of the men, played by Jake Johnson, repeatedly tries to dismiss his friends' concern about the bear by shouting lines similar to what some might say to dismiss the issue of sexual violence in college.

"But you know, it's not going to eat all of us, it's only going to eat like one in five," he says.

"You guys know the old saying, bears will be bears!" Johnson later adds, trying to calm down his friends.

"That's not a saying!" Lamorne Morris, who also appears in the PSA, says in response.

"What happened between you guys and the bear is none of my business," Johnson responds a moment later.

The PSA was launched Thursday ahead of the White House and Generation Progress' second annual week of action with the "It's On Us" campaign. Vice President Joe Biden will travel to Morehouse College, the U.S. Naval Academy and Clemson University next week to speak about campus sexual assault, as more than 90 colleges host "It's On Us" events.

Johnson explained the thinking behind the lines in the video to reporters Thursday: "As a bro, you kind of look the other way and there's a line a bro won't cross against another bro. ... I think that is so tired."

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Tyler Kingkade covers sexual violence and higher education. You can reach him at tyler.kingkade@huffingtonpost.com, or on Twitter: @tylerkingkade.

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