Skip to main content

Ads that I likemake me feel uncomfortable #74


Now, I am certain that the brainiacs behind this little fundraising effort for the war didn’t mean any harm by their choice of words here, but that’s kind of the problem, isn't it?

It reminds me of the time that the former Collingwood Football Club President (and budding-MENSA candidate) Allen McAllister clumsily attempted to refute accusations of institutionalised racism against Indigenous players. He decided that the best course of attack was to explain how he did not have a problem with coloureds, per se...
“As long as they conduct themselves like white people, well, off the field, everyone will admire them and respect them.”

In the words of teh Internets, EPIC FAIL.
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
Oh Jesus....
28 January 2009 at 00:20
Kris McCracken said…
Abe, I'm not sure that Jesus would be impressed.
28 January 2009 at 10:49
Kris McCracken said…
Diva, there is no shortage of such ads. This one is reasonably mild, actually.
28 January 2009 at 10:50
G. B. Miller said…
Hmmm....

One has to remember the time period in which this ad was produced.

You can't apply today's values to yesterday's world.

Trust me, I've seen old time ads that are 100 times worse than this one.
28 January 2009 at 11:36
Ann said…
I'm with Georgie B on this one. Would have been the norm at the time. Thankfully the world has moved on.
28 January 2009 at 14:03
Megan said…
Is this kind of like those "Celebrities - they're just like us!" pages in Us Weekly?
28 January 2009 at 15:14
Kris McCracken said…
Georgie and Ann, it certainly pales next to a couple of the earlier examples I've featured [I'm thinking of "Darky in a Watermelon " and the "Nigger Makeup ", and you're right to consider these as products that emerged within a different context.

That said, I think that going back and looking at the subtle and less subtle ways that influence ways of thinking and people's attituded (not just to race, mind you), can be helpful. As Mr McAllister demonstrates, the notion of an acceptable 'black' is one who acts 'white' does remain.
29 January 2009 at 08:24
Kris McCracken said…
Megan, celebrities are nothing like us, they are far, far better.
29 January 2009 at 08:25
Miles McClagan said…
And when Ron Noades, the chairman of Crystal Palace, tried to claim the black folks couldn't handle soccer in the winter because of genetics...

Oh whats that? Your two best players are black? And now you've pissed them off they both want to leave and you'll be crap for the next 20ty years? Good work...
29 January 2009 at 20:55
Kris McCracken said…
Miles, Ron Noades must go down as one of the least likable characters in English fitba. It is a fair indication of an ego when a Chairman sacks his managers and takes over himself.
30 January 2009 at 08:25
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...
62 comments
Read more

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

This is the moon. Have I mentioned how much I adore the zoom on my camera? It's Theme Thursday you see, and after last week's limp effort, I have been thinking about how I might redeem myself. Then I clicked on the topic and discover that it was BUTTON. We've been hearing a lot about the moon in the past couple of weeks. Apparently some fellas went up there and played golf and what-not forty-odd years ago. The desire to get to the moon, however, was not simply about enhancing opportunities for Meg and Mog titles and skirting local planning by-laws in the construction of new and innovative golf courses. No, all of your Sputniks , "One small steps" and freeze dried ice cream was about one thing , and one thing only : MAD Now, I don't mean mad in terms of "bloke breaks record for number of scorpions he can get up his bum", no I mean MAD as in Mutual assured destruction . When I was a young man you see, there was a lot of talk about the type of m...
50 comments
Read more

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...
5 comments
Read more