Huh? (More politically correct pandering.)
Offline I understand that the holocaust was a horrible time in history and many families experienced great tragedy, what I don't understand is why such a little reference would cause such an uproar. Maybe, I am not looking at this from the right perspective, if you have a different view please enlighten me.
Holocaust song title has firm squirming
Mon Sep 17, 8:54 AM ET
Canada's biggest phone company has apologized after a punk-rock reference to the Holocaust appeared on billboard advertisements for its cellphones.
The ads for Bell Canada's Solo discount service showed a young woman decked out in flashy punk rock attire, with a button that reads "Belsen was a gas" -- the controversial title of a song by the Sex Pistols, and a reference to Nazi Germany's Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
"It was inadvertent," Bell Canada spokesman Mark Langton said on Friday, noting that the dozen ads were taken down as soon as the company realized its mistake. "Obviously, we would never depict such an offensive slogan in our advertising."
He said Bell officials approved the ads after examining sample images that were smaller than the final billboards. The button inscription could only be read when the ads were blown up to their full size, he said.
"In the proofing and approval materials, it was impossible to see the button, so our folks missed it."
BCE apologizes "for any offense or distress that we caused," Langton said.
The billboards appeared in mass-transit systems in Vancouver, British Columbia, as well as in Toronto, which has a large Jewish community and many Holocaust survivors.
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You mean the Sex-Pistols song with these lyrics?
Belsen was a gas I heard the other day
In the open graves where the jews all lay
Life is fun and I wish you were here
They wrote on postcards to those held dear
Oh dear
Sergeant majors on the march
Wash their bodies in the starch
See them all die one by one
Guess it's dead guess it's glad
So bad
Belsen was a gas I heard the other day
In the open graves where the jews all lay
Life is fun and I wish you were here
They wrote on postcards to those held dear
Oh dear
Be a man be a man Belson was a gas
Be a man kill somone kill yourself be a man
Be someone kill somone be a man kill yourself
Doesn't exactly sound pro-nazi to me. I didn't realize references to anti-Nazi stuff was anti-Jew.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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How many holocaust survivors do you think are fans of the Sex Pistols? How many of them know the lyrics to the song?
I can see how the button / slogan could be perceived as offensive and insensitive.
"A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven." -- former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien
Let's say you are correct and they don't know the lyrics, which I am sure you are correct about, should the ad have been changed? Is a small button on punk rock girl in an ad really a reason to get cause an uproar?
I don't see what the big deal is. The article doesn't mention any sort of uproar or outcry. It just says that the company put out the ad, then realized that it might be offensive to some people, retracted and reprinted it. Done and done.
Is ignorance of reality a justifiable reason for not exposing people to reality?
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I guess uproar was a bad term, I think it was brought to their attention and they changed the ad.
Controversial Cell Phone Ad Pokes Fun At Holocaust
Thursday September 13, 2007 CityNews.ca StaffIt was supposed to be a harmless advertisement for a telecommunications company, but all it ended up demonstrating was an advertiser's negligence and extremely poor taste.
The Solo Mobile ad, which Thursday hung high above the crowds inside Downsview Station, depicts a tearful woman wearing a series of buttons, one of which reads "Belsen was a gas," a reference to Bergen-Belsen, a Nazi concentration camp used during the Second World War.
CityNews was notified of the offensive ad by an angry viewer, who like many we spoke to, had little to say in favour of the tasteless display.
"I was pretty stunned when I saw it," said Jonathan Warren. "I thought, 'Whose oversight was this?'"
It's an oversight that was easy enough to make for the thousands of commuters who passed under the massive poster, but for Bell Mobility, which owns Solo Mobile, it was an unacceptable error in judgment and one their executives were quick to respond to by issuing the following statement:
"We are in the process of removing all of these particular Solo Mobile ads... running these ads was an error on our part and one we certainly regret. You won't see them again of course."
As for Warren, he says Bell's course of action is the only one possible, though it doesn't change his view of the company.
"I would hesitate to say that it's sending an anti-Semitic message," Warren continued. "What it's sending is that the corporations that have put that out there are pretty unobservant."
As of Thursday there were 51 of the ads around Toronto and Vancouver, all of which Bell promised would be removed by the day's end.
I guess what I am trying to say is, I know the company wants please the customers, I know not everyone knows that the lyrics of the song are anti-nazi, but it is confusing to me that such an item in a ad would be offensive.
If it were an ad and the model was wearing a shirt that said, "The Jews Should Burn", I could understand the offense and criticism of the ad. I do not understand a small button that has a song title on it which fits the whole motif of the ad is 'offensive', maybe it is because I am not a holocaust survivor, I just don't see why it is a big deal.
No, I don't think it's a big deal, either. My point is that there's an inherent question in this article. Should people be shielded from reality simply because their ignorance causes them to be offended?
How hard would it have been for the company to release a statement saying:
"We're sorry some people were offended by the button. Two things are important for them to know. First, the button was inadvertantly included in the ad. Second, the words on the button are actually from an Anti-Nazi song mourning the death of so many Jews in the holocaust. We feel that this is consistent with our mission at such-and-such company to promote peace and understanding. Again, we apologize for the inadvertant offense caused to those who did not understand the true meaning of the button."
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I agree with you 210%!!
The Jews are not just mad because they were made into lamps and soap; but also, they are really angry that they didn't get a cut of the profits. Turning Grandma into soap is a mitzvah if you make enough from it.
"Tis better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven." -Lucifer
Now, this is an example of what would have been genuinely offensive in a commercial. Well done.
Nip it!
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I am here only to serve. I am pleased that my Rosh Hashanah reflections have assisted. Nipped it is.
"Tis better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven." -Lucifer
I agree with Hamby that a clarification might have been enough. Like I've said before, there is a legit kind of PC which we all accept (certain epithets we have abandoned), and the PC of people covering their butts. This is clearly an example of the latter on the company's part. If they don't want their company to be associated with a message as murky as punk rock's flirtation with Nazi imagery, it's their choice. Unless you want a footnote on the ad, trying to explain that lyrics can often be taken ironically; or meant to raise issues rather than offer a definite answer on them.
What bugs me here is that people still think, if they look at something hard enough, they can decide on behalf of the affected parties whether something is offensive. I don't expect to give up their free speech, but there are survivors, and the children and relatives of survivors, who could be offended by this, and legitimately so. I don't propose censorship, and clarifying things as Hamby suggests in an option, but recognize things can have consequences you don't understand, and there's just no getting around it.
How does this compare to the (genuine) uproar over the Muhammad cartoon?
I don't know that there was uproar over this ad, but if there was, it didn't descend into rioting. That's a good question, though -- how does pointed satire compare to glib prejudice? The cartoonists were seemingly commenting on the violent ideology Islam can trace all the way back to its source. Without knowing all the history of the song (murky, still), the button seems to say, "Haha, your relatives were murdered."
Again, I'm not advocating censorship.
Although I've heard of them, I'm not at all familiar with the Sex Pistols' music.
When I started reading this thread, I had no idea that is a song title. I admit to being taken aback when I got to the line: with a button that reads "Belsen was a gas" before I read the rest of the sentence.
I was still taken aback until I read all the lyrics that Hambydammit posted.
I can understand why people would be offended because most won't know the whole story.
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I understand what you are saying. I am just having a hard time understanding if the words were that small on the proofs they still must not have been very big on the billboard. I can't see that a small button like that, which matches the motif of the ad, would be offensive even if you don't know the lyrics. Maybe a t-shirt emblazoned with the same slogan on the model in the ad would make more sense to me. Maybe I just don't understand because I am not a holocaust survivor...
To get to the bottom line...is offending someone inherently wrong?
Really, no matter what subject we are talking about, are ideas that some people find offensive... well do we have a justification to censore it?
Why? Because we apes disagree with each other on certain ideas?
I think censoring something because someone finds it "offensive" is really a means of stagnating different views. Don't consider why they did/said what they did/say. It's just going along with the idea, "Tell that person with an opposing view to mine to shut up. I don't agree."
I'd rather us apes have a free-for-all and offend each other every day. At least then we would have to think and wonder why we find it offensive and come up with a logical reason why we think that way.
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
They recognized possible PR problems and chose to avoid them. There are more complex issues left to explore, but not for them, as they chose the scorched earth approach of covering their asses. If they had infringed on someone's artistic integrity to do so, that would be different story -- but this is some poser with a button, so fuck it. Good riddance.
I understand the reasoning of a financially focused company pandering to a diverse customer base, I was thinking more on the underlying idea of offensive content and how logically we should deal with it.
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
It depends on the content.
a) I hate niggers, God hates fags.b) All non-Christians go to hell.c) Jews are obnoxious and cheap.d) Asians shouldn't drive.e) Women should be barefoot and pregnant.
Free speech protects these sentiments, as long as they don't suggest threats. So what distinguished one from another? How come some are acceptable in some mainstream circles, and others are looked at a repulsive? Further, free speech doesn't protect you from loss of sales or other public backlash. I don't have just the right not to patronize your establishment, I have the right to organize a boycott and make sure you're forever associated with a certain idea -- so choose your ideas wisely.
I agree as well. Unfortunately, the whole point of an ad is to quickly bounce some propoganda in your head about a product, not make your consumer think.
"A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven." -- former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien