Warning: May Contain Nuts
Brits and Their Telly
Sun, April 13, 2008 - 9:55 PM
They played about seven minutes of ads from last year's winners because some of this year's winning commercials made fun of last year's winners. All in all, it was a hoot as well as an emotional slam.
Most of the humor was something even a Yank could understand, but some -- these are Award Winning ads in Britain, mind you -- were nonsensical. Must have been UK-cultural inside jokes. Haven't-got-a-clue ads notwithstanding, the rest were pretty inventive overall.
The emotional slam came from the serious ads. The Brits do not pull punches in their public service message ads. One, regarding drunk driving, had a cute parody jingle of the Twelve Days of Christmas, yet the lyrics (regarding various types of bodily injuries) were as dark as smoky Hell as the words echoed the images of broken, mangled children in the ER of a hospital. The child getting CPR on a gurney almost brought me to tears in a microsecond.
Other ads regarding child abuse left the audience dead silent. I felt like I had been mugged after each one.
I don't understand why these types of ads are aired here in the US. What is wrong with making a public service ad exquisitely painful or uncomfortable in order to incite people to action? Why are we (the general, editorial "we") such pussies here in the USA? We think we are soooo badass, but cannot stomach an ad showing kids damaged by drunk drivers or about to be molested by dear old Dad?
Yeah, shocking stuff. We need more shock when it comes to topics like those.
Sun, April 13, 2008 - 9:55 PM -
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5 Comments
5 Comments |
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Sun, April 13, 2008 - 11:03 PM
We save up all our shocking for the testicles of "detainees" in Guantanamo Bay.
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Sun, April 13, 2008 - 11:06 PM
well, the big business runs everything and doesnt allow it. It could be bad for profits if people perceived cars as unsafe. They didn't include safty belts for years when they knew it was better but felt it would make the car seem unsafe. Corporate censorship is the worst kind. As far as child abuse issues, that would be saying we are failures as protectors of our youth, that we are bad parents.
the Orwell turningin his grave thing was timely. |
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Sun, April 13, 2008 - 11:31 PM
aren't PSAs supposed to be to create awareness? seems to me if you don't know drunk driving or child abuse is wrong by now, you must be living in a cave and probably don't have cable, or you live in england apparently
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Sun, April 13, 2008 - 11:55 PM
Our PSA are done by celebs who have been caught doing the bad stuff and then say on the commercials 'just say no'. Or else you could end up like the celeb, famous, wealthy, and able to get away with murder, and forced to say sorry my bad on tv.
but yeah, we know this shit goes on but we work to ignore the reality and facts. Which of couse means that if we dont see it it dosent mean I have to do anything about it. The world is a good place and everything is okay...lalalalala. lalalalala |