As we are getting ever deeper into the Orwellian mode, things come across
my desk that seem surreal.
What do you have to say to this one that I received some time ago:
The Reuters European Business Report comments on a TV commercial for a detergent showing a white horse escaping from a group of black horses. It seems that this commercial has been accused by viewers of promoting racism.
Britain's Independent Television Commission (ITC), a watchdog agency of sorts, which licenses and regulates Britain's commercial TV, said 32 viewers protested that the image implied that white is superior to black and "therefore carried a racist message''. It recommended "careful vetting of advertisements using images which could be misconstrued as 'racial metaphors'''.
This detergent commercial, part of a Unilever campaign to show the cleaning powers of this washing powder, also featured an ice skater dressed in white speeding away from his black-garbed companions, and a Dalmatian shaking itself so that all its black spots flew off.
The agency that dreamed up the commercial is said to have told the ITC that it had created visual metaphors to support the soap powder's slogan 'To set clean free'.
Another ad campaign ran into similar complaints.
A poster for Benetton, the Italian retailer known for its controversial ads, showed a black horse mounting a white horse. This ad was scrapped last month because poster site owners said it was too shocking.
A previous Benetton ad showed a black child looking like a little demon while a white child appeared as an angel.
It is conventional and safe to say that these ads border on the unacceptable.
Let's say, however, that the colors were reversed. A different feeling,
then? After all, we all laughed at the bumbling redneck bigot Archie Bunker,
white and dopey, trashing his own culture and his race. A pitch black counterpart
befouling his own nest - week after week, year after year - would not have
been as clever an idea for never-ending television re-runs.
Ingrid
Thought for the Day:
"When an elephant is in trouble, even a frog will kick him."
(Hindu proverb)