Complaints

If I don’t like something, I am quite willing to pipe up and say so. Through the years, I have learned to pick my battles more carefully. Still, the way I see it, we are all responsible for the society we live in. If we don’t voice our concern, then we should be prepared to live in the world that has been formed without our input.

Years ago, I was concerned about a Sprite advertisement where parents were attending a show so they got their daughter to baby-sit. They specifically said no boys were to come over. As soon as they left, the boyfriend was seen behind the door with a pizza. The parents forgot their tickets, so they surprised the teen by walking in. The pizza was thrown in the air and the boyfriend ducked behind the couch with the adults not knowing all that happened.

Sounds innocent, but I didn’t like the way it made it sound “cute” to lie to adults when you are in a position of responsibility looking after children. I was surprised that the parent company, Coca Cola, had shucked it wholesome image. This was the company that taught the world to sing in one of its ads. Why was it portraying adults as dolts who wouldn’t notice someone was trying to pull a fast one on them or if they did know what was going on, wouldn’t seem concerned that their daughter was lying to them?

I don’t think it was only I who complained, but the advertisement barely lasted a week.

More recently, my target was the Wrigley Gum Company. It introduced a new sugar-free Juicy Fruit. In the commercial, a guy was strumming the company song on a guitar. Two guys enter the scene while everyone else is enjoying the music, rip the instrument from his grasp and smash it. This was supposed to be funny. I didn’t think so. So I called the company.

They basically told me to lighten up. Didn’t I appreciate the allegory? I asked them if their company policy was to settle all disputes with violence. In a world where people don’t seem to talk about their differences and come to some resolution, smashing somebody’s guitar is not an image I want to see. Also, having written commercials myself, I know that the idea isn’t really that creative. There are better ways to convey a radically new gum.

They created a second ad. It wasn’t much better. I complained again. Like before, I don’t think I was the only one who was offended. It didn’t last long either.

Next I tackled Much Music. You’re against violence against women, right? How about racism? Why not throw in vandalism?
In a Smashing Pumpkin’s video called 1979 all of the following happens. A girl’s head is shoved violently at a party. An Asian’s convenience store is trashed. Somebody’s home has its pool furniture thrown into the water and toilet paper put all over. Ah, the sweet innocence of youth.

I wrote to Much Music and they didn’t reply. I happened to know that the Canadian Radio and Television Commission takes these complaints seriously, so I contacted them and asked why I didn’t receive a reply. The sent a letter to Much Music and copied me saying that the station had nine days to respond otherwise it risked losing its licence.

Somehow I told this story in a classroom a few days ago and a couple of girls went ballistic. They didn’t equate that I had done nothing wrong. I was exercising my rights, and it was Much Music that was trying to ignore them.

I told the girls to put their beefs on paper. One furiously started scribbling. She tossed out the first draft and handed me the second. On it she told of how a video by M.I.A. called Paper Planes advocates that war and gangster activities need to stop through mockery. I thanked her for her response and said I would watch the video.

Ya, perhaps in my old age I just am not getting the hip, young message that is being given here. Maybe I am taking the last lines of the song a bit too seriously:
Some some some I some I murder
Some I some I let go
Some some some I some I murder
Some I some I let go.

Meanwhile the number of murders in Toronto is on the rise and people scratch their heads and ask why. No, it's not this one song, but it is a whole society filled with media of all types, including the Internet, that promote voilence.

There was a saying in computer talk a few years ago in the punch card era. It was garbage in, garbage out. I will argue for your right to put whatever you want into your head. I cherish that same right for myself, but it has been known for centuries that if you fill your life with good thoughts, then the result will be a happier life.