Tuesday 5 April 2011

Signs You Should Probably Ignore Anything Someone Has To Say…

Sex and violence should be cut from street advertising, according to a psychic healer who has led a 20-year, one-man crusade.
Yup, that’ll do it.
Martin Coombs, 72, of Perry Vale, Forest Hill, set up the group Stop Crude Advertising Material in Public (Scamp) in the early 1990s and is now looking for supporters.

He initially focused on pornography after he had a complaint from one woman who “felt threatened” at a petrol station selling soft porn magazines.
There are petrol stations that don’t sell soft-porn magazines, then..?
He said: “I am not a prude. People are entitled to see or purchase what they want but it should be in the privacy of their own homes.”

Mr Coombs claims that levels of street crime are not helped by adverts and posters which “normalise” violence and the use of weapons.
I don’t think they are encouraged, either.

But maybe he could give us an example?
Over the years he has put in around 30 complaints, including against adverts for serial killer drama Dexter and Nikita, which featured a gun-wielding heroine with the strapline “I like to kill.
Oh, my…
He also joined protests against ads for horror film Eight Legged Freaks which depicted terrifying giant spiders he claimed could cause a car accident.
Really? I thought they had to be sculptures to do that…
But so far his only success has been a ban on a poster by the Deptford radio station Fusion, depicting a naked female torso with the nipples replaced by radio dials.
*sigh*

Guess who his heroine is? Go on, guess…
Mr Coombs, who admits to being inspired by campaigner Mary Whitehouse, is now seeking help and support from organisations and people with an outlook similar to his own.

He says she told him: “People think you might be nuts, but keep on doing it.”
You keep on keeping on, you crazy dude…

7 comments:

Bucko said...

"He said: “I am not a prude. People are entitled to see or purchase what they want but it should be in the privacy of their own homes.”"

Really? So I need to get a petrol station selling porn in my living room?

Laban said...

He's right. Street advertising admittedly reflects a culture, but also reinforces it. Without getting too Marxist, it's a bit of a dialectic. When my daughter constantly sees the public depiction of women as sex objects, and only sex objects, that's telling her what is, but also that it's OK.

If you banned those ads tomorrow (and eviscerated the Sun and the Mail, closed down Heat, Empire, OK etc etc), you wouldn't change the culture overnight - it's not a sufficient condition. But it's a necessary one.

I wrote a little on the subject here.

Mrs Whitehouse was right, too.

Lynne said...

Damn! The Moose beat me to it...

Clarissa said...

I seem to recall that people also thought that the Wonderbra "Hello Boy" advertisements could cause accidents back in the day.

Lift and separate said...

I think it was "Hello Boys." At least on the ads I stared at when I was young(er)

In the meantime, wasn't there a magazine for men called Whitehouse? I believe this was so named to help celebrate the efforts of the erstwhile campaigner.

JuliaM said...

"So I need to get a petrol station selling porn in my living room?"

He's not thought it through, has he?

"He's right. Street advertising admittedly reflects a culture, but also reinforces it. "

We are where we are.

There's no putting that genie back in the bottle, not without turning us into a culture quite alien to the one we used to have.

"In the meantime, wasn't there a magazine for men called Whitehouse? I believe this was so named to help celebrate the efforts of the erstwhile campaigner."

If not, it should have been!

Angry Exile said...

Martin Coombs, 72, of Perry Vale, Forest Hill, set up the group Stop Crude Advertising Material in Public (Scamp) in the early 1990s...

I tried advertising really crude material in the privacy of my own home but it wasn't much of a success. Nobody could see it.