What Should I Think? | the Sainsburys Christmas Advert

 ©Sainsburys

I have read article after article in which the advert is rebuked, I have had conversations with people who have said it's disgusting and reductive, it has received 727 complaints to the ASA. Some people love the way it made them feel, and have said that the branding was irrelevant.

It's important to tell you now that I don't have a concrete opinion on the ad, I don't think I have to. I just have ideas:

I was at my Nan's. It was a Saturday and I think X Factor was on. The advert was introduced with a special announcement just to let you know it was a bit longer and more special than other adverts. Everyone went quiet. Then I watched it and I thought:
'Isn't it nice that we are all the same. Isn't it nice that those German guys like football and girls, like English guys do. Isn't it sad that normal, nice people have to fight over land squabbles on behalf of those infinitely more rich and powerful than themselves (and still do)' 
And then it was the end, and I realised it was an advert for Sainsburys.

And your first reaction - as a semi-intelligent university-goer with the most elementary understanding of cold stony capitalism (and a declined job application for said supermarket) - is to CRY AND ADMONISH the reduction of such war-time urban mythology to achieve corporate profit through the harnessing and exploitation of our core values: our assumption under all the information fed to us, that we are all one as a species, that friendship and love and football (and chocolate?) is the same in every language, that we are fundamentally the same mass of atoms and cells and nerves under our uniforms and despite our imaginary borders.

And it did make me feel exploited, logically...

But it's nice to see things that way for a change, it's very unusual for us. We're told by news and society that people are different, that we all have special needs and customs and traditions and to respect them (or fear them) but we are very rarely told of the similarities, and that people are mostly normal with the same core interests, and that we're mostly good. I think that's part of the uproar, because people felt something very real and then it was snatched from them by a corp vying for their turkey-and-cracker money.

Most of all, I was confused

Because it was supposed to be political, not commercial. It was nice that they could share chocolate; but they were going to have to be shooting at each other tomorrow, against their nature and wishes. Isn't it uncomfortable to think there could be a war-time myth about the increasing number of soldiers in Iraq (hundreds more by next month), and that could be used to sell super-Atkins-freeze-dried-future-chocolate in another century? 

The advert was supposed to make me feel warm and fuzzy and spiritually connected to my species in a way that could be utilised and transferred on to the Sainsburys brand - which is a common advertising technique - but it left me a bit sad. It left me feeling like war at Christmas is always going to be an occurrence, that young poor people fighting battles for established rich governmental bodies will always be part of our culture and consciousness.

War should not be viewed through some skewed, soft-focus lense: if it happened one hundred years ago or yesterday. It should not be used as a vessel in advertising to demonstrate how easily we are interconnected, although it is nice and refreshing to feel that way, for a change.

what do you think? tweet me @bakebakebaker

BAKER
oxoxoxo

My Problem With | The Revolution Will Be Televised

This seems to be turning into a BBC3-bashing blog, but it really isn't. I think there is a place for a channel like BBC3 that doesn't have to rely on advertising revenue aimed at young people, I even signed the campaign to keep it. I just think the producers need to stop belittling the audience.

©BAFTA

The Revolution Will Be Televised is an incredible concept, Jolyon Rubinstein and Heydon Prowse come across as genuinely funny in sections and the facts are all there. A show that reveals to the young general public - a demographic constantly barraged with opinion by Sun-reading parents and faced in the newsagents with headlines of 'Immigrants on 25k a year' 'Benefit cheats ruining economy' - that gives information about real inequalities in the tax system; about giant well-known corporate entities that do not contribute; and that reveals political lies and deception, is always going to be a winner in my book. 
The huge, gaping, enormous hole of a problem is in the delivery. 

Political and economic matters are covered in a funny, cartoon-like and satirical way  which is interesting to watch. It makes the facts digestible without being heavy - a complication that being too news-centered can have on the mind. You can walk away from the programme and it won't negatively affect your day, but you'll be a little more informed.

The glaringly obvious problem is the attempt to cover widespread criminal acts with the same sweep of lighthearted humour. The segment that was most notable to me watching S3E4 was on female genital mutilation. The factual evidence was presented in typical cartoon-style, which would have been distasteful to some but understandable considering the format, if the cartoon wasn't a figure in quite distinctive middle-eastern clothing. Female Genital Mutilation is then made clear by the following map to be a predominantly African, cultural problem. Which it is. Why, then, does the pictorial evidence suggest otherwise? 

©BBC

If I didn't know, I too would assume that it was a middle-eastern problem, I would assume it was yet another horrible thing going on in that part of the world, I would assume that it was those nasty muslims at it again. And the curly sword? Who at the BBC okay-d that image? WHO?

see the cartoon in full HERE

But the worst bit was to follow. 
After making clear in the cartoon that Ethiopia and the Sudan had banned FGM and that it was illegal; there was a very odd canvassing exercise held in which a woman dressed as a 'nurse' (in non-standard, short scrubs belted around the waist) questioned men on the street if they would like to have  their own genitals cut off. This wasn't just unfunny, it was uncomfortable and cringy-ly so (not in a Peep Show way). Then there was an attempt to distract officials at the embassies of both Ethiopia and Sudan by said nurse, to ask them benign questions about having their own genitals cut off. 
Is the program really attempting to take a complex, long-standing, cultural tradition and crime deep-seated in centuries of gender politics and reveal it under the skirt of a sexy nurse and some propositions about willies? 

The second issue I will cover briefly. It was also in S3E4 and something that I had actually not heard of before. It was about sexual abuse in the holding buildings where asylum seekers stay when awaiting information about their residency. People who have experienced war, torture, the death of their children and loved ones, rape, gang and rebel occupation of their home. And guess how The Revolution Will be Televised covered this issue?

©BBC

An dutch rave-themed mock orgy wearing neon leggings and headbands under the characters 'Double Fist TV'

There is a sentiment that despite these issues being covered in an unconventional way, the program is getting the information out there, and to that I Call Bullshit.
It's not only vaguely insensitive to trivialise and sexualise these events in some insane 'ooo matron' out-dated and failed attempt at British humour, it's damaging. Young people don't need you to do that. It's offensive to everyone involved, and serves to undermine harrowing humanitarian issues in front of hundreds of thousands of viewers, and re-affirm a distance between 'that happening over there to them people' and what should concern us. 

Typing it out makes it sound even more insane than watching it, so feck knows how stuff like that got through all those grueling stages of post-production. I just hope the delivery is cleaned up before a new series, because the concept really does have solid relevance.

WHAT DO YOU THINK, READER? 
tweet me @bakebakebaker

BAKER 
xoxoxo

Ken Barlow and The Conservative Media (originally posted May 2013)

pixabay.com

It's local election time, so never a better time than any to talk about about the (increasingly) ugly conservative media and their portrayal of the Bill Roache/Ken Barlow rape allegations. SEE: The Article Here

The fact is, the allegations were just that, and it is very true that it would not have been moral for the article to portray anyone accused of a criminal act as guilty, but the extreme lengths this piece seems to go to in order to sway the viewers as far the other way as they can in order to protest his innocence is unbelievable and needs to be examined.

The way they seem to be portraying Bill solely as a kind old family man with a lovely weather girl girlfriend, making inane excuses just because it happened all those years ago- which is all the more time for an ordeal like that to affect your life, your choices, and your personal security. Are we still living in a world where the words ‘rape allegation'  can be overshadowed by the phrases ‘family man’and ‘a few years ago’?

Yes, yes indeed we are.
The article was contextualised by a photo of the alleged rapist looking like a scared and confused old man on his return from the police station-having ‘suffered the indignity of being DNA tested’; a nice picture of smiling Bill with the Queen; a vogue-type 1970's glamour shot; and an array of photos of Bill being the ‘Twice-married father with love of New Age spirituality’ that he so blatantly is

Erm?

The Daily Mail’s agenda just seemed so blatant to me: take a straight, old, rich white man with a longstanding career (in a soap?) minimize his alleged indiscretions by undermining them by pointing out that it was, in fact, ‘FORTY SIX years ago’, and remind the like-minded readers just how wholesome he is by having a nice little biography at the end.

Question 1: What can be achieved from the view that the seriousness of rape can be undermined by the rapist’s age, social status, sexuality and the time the assault was committed?

Question 2: Who has views like that? And, subsequently

Question 3: What kind of institution employs journalists with views like that?

The Daily Mail is owned by the one of the biggest media conglomerates in Europe, the Daily Mail and General Trust plc (DMGT), who also are associated with: The London Evening Standard, The Metro (no! Not Nemi!), The Mail on Sunday, Ireland on Sunday and The Mail today. DGMT is chaired by The Viscount Rothermere- yes, I know, he does sound like a Disney villain.

And guess who Harold Jonathan Esmond Vere Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere- a man with a worth of 1.1bn pounds- supports financially?

David Cameron.

Those 2010 posters of David looking almost as wholesome as the daily mail made Ken Barlow look yesterday were financed partly by Rothermere, partly by other equally wealthy and equally backwards elitists, and how can David not allow their views to be portrayed through the media with a silly thing like PRESS REGULATION if they are the ones who financed him and ultimately won his place in power?

Money in politics will only ever serve old rich white men who see nothing wrong with allegations of child-rape, especially if they were 'FORTY SIX years ago'- which is why this party and all that it stands for should not be in charge of our nation.

tweet me @bakebakebaker

BAKER

xoxoxox

(apologies about this post being weirdly formatted, no idea why hahah)