Offending Identifiable Groups

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This grows out of the Koran burning issue, the much older depiction of Mohamed issue, the US flag burning issue, and even the Burka Babe issue of so long ago (that the French seem to have taken a hard line on)

Here's another one: Knocked up Nuns! Now my question is this: Does the watchdog in question speak for the government? If so, going out of their way to avoid offending an identifiable group seems to me to be a little too much censorship.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not even a catholic and I find the ad incredibly offensive. That doesn't mean I don't recognize the rights of others to believe differently. If a TV station chose not to air it because they don't want to lose viewers, that's not an issue to me. But for the government to draw this line here seems to me to be high handed.

Thoughts?

 

Hmm...an ice-cream company creates an advert that annoys a lot of people at a time when people are all into their healthy eating. Yeah, that was stupid. How could they excpect any publicity from it?!

Now, how does that sarcasm smiley work?

 

I think the ban is yet another politically correct over-reaction. Just about anybody can get offended about anything these days.

Let's ban The Simpsons because it portrays men as being fat and stupid. As a man, that offends me.

 

Don't forget Barbie Harbs. As a woman with a big chest and blonde hair, I am offended by the fact that people assume I have a plastic fanny!

 

I talked about this with some RL friends, we agreed that while identificable groups need to be protected from speech that encourages violence against them ("Kill your local ________________ neighbours!") those groups do not have a right to be protected from offensive material -- in other words, you don't have a right to not be offended.

At the same time, civilized behaviour requires that we not strive to be offensive, lest people avoid our company. But that doesn't mean the Law has to be involved at that level.

 

There is nothing profane in that commercial, nor is it doing anything to advocate violence against any group - therefore I think the government should not do anything. However, just because you make a commercial like that doesn't mean that anyone actually has to allow you to purchase air time and show said commercial. This is one of those things that will take care of itself - if enough people are offended by the commercial, they will stop watching shows that put that commercial on, the show will lose ratings, and they will get rid of that type of advertising.

 

Exactly, Aldeth.

 

Yeah, you summed up my position pretty well, Aldeth. I would go a bit further, though, in that even if there is anything profane, it is not the government's job to put a 100% muzzle on it. Maybe restrict the broadcast times or something, but otherwise . . .

 

I have no idea what free speach rights the UK has (I'm sure they have some, I'm just not sure in what form or with what restrictions), so I have no idea if this is over-reaching things or not. I know they have stricter rules concerning profanity and offensive content, but I'm not sure how far they go. Either way, intentionally offending a large population group like all Catholics or all Christians or all religions while advertizing your product isn't exactly a bright idea.

 

It doesnt matter, the company is planning to defy the ASA and publish the next in this series of ads along the intended route for the pope's 'visit' to the UK

 

Not many people are wanting the pope to visit at all. It's going to cost us a fortune and there's been a whole new scandel (again) about sexual abuse with children in the Catholic church.
Concerning the cost of his visit, a friend of mine pretty much summed it up on facebook:

As to free speech laws, I think it's pretty much a case of 'say what you like, no-one important will listen anyway'

 

I did not realize the percentage of Catholics in the UK was significant enough to merit a visit from the Pope. I have never researched the percentages, but I always assumed the dominant Christian religion throughout the UK was Anglican. (Ireland is a different story - I imagine they are majority Catholic, but they aren't the UK.) However, if the Pope is coming for a visit, it suggests a significant percentage (plurality perhaps) of the UK is Catholic.

 

Up here in the north I think it's about 50/50