In 2004, the British press reported that the album cover Damien Hirst had designed for Band Aid 20’s re-recording of the 1984 single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” had been rejected by the organizers, for fear it would frighten small children. “The record, that’s the important part,” explained Midge Ure. “The cover doesn’t really matter. […]
Pepe Reina, Liverpool and Spain’s national team goalkeeper, is a spokesperson for the Spanish multinational insurance company Groupama Seguros. In a new TV ad, Reina lands up in a jungle where a blackfaced chief claims Reina as his wife. You get the joke: it’s supposed to be a play on Reina’s last name which translates […]
By Elliot Ross What happens when humanitarian agencies ditch the tried-and-trusted fundraising method of splashing disaster porn across screens and news pages? What kind of images can possibly fill in for the altogether enthralling scene of non-white bodies wracked with overwhelming pain, images which express nothing but pure need? With Action Against Hunger’s new ad […]
The South African fast food chicken chain Nando’s (which has of late also become very popular in Britain) has always been known for their good adverts. They usually manage to combine a quick-off-the-mark, topical sense of the news with a particularly South African brand of wit and irony. Take for instance their ads featuring Julius […]
It is still okay to create the most objectionable stereotypes about certain Africans and for it to be considered fine. An Indian soft drink company, Parle Agro, is marketing a new soft drink, called LMN, with a series of 5 TV commercial series titled “Lost Bushmen” set “… in the [Bushmen's] natural habitat of the […]
* The photography of Bronwyn Lace (via Feizel Mamdoo). * The short film project, 15 Malaysia. You can watch all the films online.
The very popular TV drama “Mad Men” (my wife is hooked) is willing to engage the toughest issues of its time–the 1960s–and use them to provide an insight into our current social norms: anti-Semitism, divorce, sexuality, misogyny and domestic violence. But it won’t touch race beyond very shallow and superficial treatment, argues Latoya Peterson, a […]
