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| Powershop ad: Chairman Mao doing Gangnam Style |
An advert depicting Chairman Mao performing the Gangnam Style dance has been banned from Auckland bus stops for fear it will insult Chinese residents.
The ad, for online electricity store Powershop, shows the Chinese former dictator surrounded by Chinese people and soldiers posing with guns, and carries the slogan 'Same Power Different Attitude'.
The above picture doesn't show soldiers with guns. Looks like that part has been cropped.
Advertising on the shelters is managed by Adshel on behalf of council-owned Auckland Transport.
Adshel managing director Nick Vile said it always flagged content that could be controversial.
"The reason we do that is our network of bus shelters is deemed to be a service provided by the city council to their constituents," Mr Vile said.
"Obviously that constituent group are wide and varied in terms of their ethnicity, and as a result I guess it's prudent for them to take a conservative approach."
Auckland Transport communications manager Sharon Hunter said as a general rule they did not want to have adverts on shelters that were designed to "shock, offend or be controversial".
"Something which may be funny to one person can easily be offensive to another.
"On this occasion we believed Powershop's advertisement may potentially cause offence to Auckland's Chinese population."
Strange, how potentially offending the Chinese Government (I mean, come on, this is not poking fun at Chinese people - Chairman Mao represents the Chinese Government, not the people!) immediately creates a proactive reaction from the Council-owned company, while as an ad poking fun at the Pope Emeritis (supposedly marrying two men when the Catholic Church is totally against same-sex marriage) who represents almost as many Catholics as Chinese people (1.1 billion vs 1.2 billion) does not result in a ban on that other ad!
Hattip: Brendan Malone
Related links: Chairman Mao Gangnam Style ad banned from bus stops ~ NZ Herald
Powershop advertisement offensive to Catholics ~ NZ Conservative
The New Anti-Catholicism: the Last Acceptable Prejudice ~ Amazon
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably offensive to Koreans too - Gangnam isn't a place in China, nor a Chinese creation. It's Korea!
ReplyDeleteIt's like the Chinese make a joke about John Key humming Waltzing Matilda when signing off on the asset sales.
See, not very funny because the association is with Australia, not NZ.
Ah, those white people, all from England anyway...
Powershop humour continually fails to amuse.