Saturday 28 November 2009

Good News For Christmas!

There will be no ‘Sound of Music’ or ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ on TV this year. It has been decided that they may be offensive to families of singing moppets who didn’t make it to Switzerland, or who still languish in the clutches of the Vulgarian authorities.

Oh, and for all you war movie fans, sorry, but no ‘The Great Escape’ either. Well, not everyone got out of German POW camps alive, you know.

And what’s that? What about ‘The Railway Children’…?

You heartless monster! What about all those children who will never see their daddies again? How could you?!
Waitrose has been forced to remove a sequence from its Christmas TV advert following complaints that it was offensive to families of British soldiers.
Say what..?
The one-minute commercial was originally broadcast featuring a scene which depicted British troops returning home to celebrate with their families.

It finishes with the slogan: 'This Christmas, there's only one place to be.'

Waitrose removed the sequence following a flood of complaints from members of the public.
Not from Army families, note. From the professionally offended brigade.

Not that that stopped rentaquote mouthpieces from having their say when contacted by the media:
Colonel Bob Stewart, the chairman of Action for Armed Forces, said: 'I do think this is a bit insensitive, both to the families of those who have been killed and to those troops who are still out there.

'It does seem as though Waitrose are commercially trading on the goodwill the public have for the armed forces.'
Oh, FFS…!

If they provided a large donation to your fund, I bet you’d hold off on those condemnations of the grubby world of commerce, wouldn’t you?

In a flash, I bet…
John Pittman, 66, from Yeovil, Somerset, one of those who lodged a complaint, said he was 'shocked' by the 'upsetting' advert.

He said: 'I was quite shocked by it. I think it's staggeringly insensitive to service families and could especially upset children.

'I had the shock of my life because I know a lot of military families and I thought that it was totally inappropriate.
Did you actually ask any of them what they thought? Or did you just take it on yourself to be offended on their behalf?

What happened to my country? Where did it go? When did it become the exclusive preserve of the thin-skinned, the miserable, the dumb and the self-righteous?

And more to the point, when did we start letting these people dictate what we can see on TV commercials?

Oh, how I wish Waitrose had had the cojones to tell them to go to hell….

3 comments:

  1. I can only assume that John Pittman 66 has been living in box for thos 66 years if a 10 secoind scene froma TV advert can give him

    the shock of my life

    Also is I know a lot of military families
    The West Country equivalent of I have a lot of Black friends
    As used by the professionally offended here in the Metropolis

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  2. What makes it DOUBLY ridiculous, is that the advert doesn't show a serviceman at all.

    As you can see quite clearly in the stills on the Mail website, the chap is a photojournalist - snazzy beige waistcoat, civvy casuals, cameras and all.

    If Waitrose are to be criticised at all, then they should be slammed (nice tabloid word) for using military imagery but ducking the whole "serviceman coming home from the war" issue in the first place. {sigh}

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  3. Oh, and this isn't the first year the ad has run either - it was certainly broadcast in 2008, and I think 2007 as well.

    Pittman et al must have had too much port to notice those years, I suppose.

    ReplyDelete