Catholic parishioners are circulating a petition to ban ‘sexualised’ billboards and outdoor advertisements which demean women and expose children to inappropriate content.
It comes after one of the petition’s organisers saw an on-car-advertisement for a carwash featuring a woman in a suggestive pose. Hose between legs perhaps?
Matthew Restall and Bridget Spinks have 4000 signatures, including that of Archbishop of Sydney Cardinal George Pell, and are hoping to collect as many as 100,000 by January, when they will be submitted to the NSW and Victorian parliaments to be tabled.
[...]
Ms Spinks said there was great support – from both religious and non-religious people – for the campaign, which has been backed by The Catholic Weekly.
Bridget Spinks says that if no one acts now, by 2040 the level of our community standards is going to drop and ‘Who knows what our children are having to deal with.’
Restall says this version of the AMI ad attracts to much attention. Have advertisers no shame?
As for Matthew Restall – well it seems he just won’t rest. He’s been campaigning to have AMI’s Want Longer Lasting Sex billboards banned for six months and isn’t happy that they have replaced ‘sex’ with ‘censored.’ You can’t please everyone huh. I’d love to hear Mr Restall explain how the AMI ad in its newest state objectifies women or is inappropriate for children.
He [Matthew Restall] said the recent “censoring” of billboards was a superficial move designed to appease the Advertising Standards Bureau while attracting more attention. He has welcomed The Catholic Weekly’s support and expects that “hundreds of Catholic families will take up the cause and get behind this campaign which seeks to clean the environment of the real pollutants in our cities”.
He said the company behind the billboards “has replaced its signs only to gain more publicity”.
They spoke about this on Sunrise this morning and Kochie said one or two people complaining to the ASB and then the ads being removed was taking it too far. Too right Kochie.
Update 11AM: SMH reports that the ASB is investigating fresh complaints about the Longer Lasting Censorsed billboard — because the letter S is still visible in the ad.
‘Child advocacy’ campaigner Julie Gale (Kids Free To Be Kids) says ‘the new ads showed the advertiser was not serious about complying with the earlier ruling.’ Amazing. If half the energy that was wasted on these billboards was actually spent on real child protection initiatives, some kids might really be better off.
3 comments
jimbojones says:
Oct 21, 2008
I’m growing very tired of hearing AMI’s ads on the radio, but I can turn the radio off or change the station.
If AMI advertise on television, I can do the same.
If AMI advertise on the internet, they’re not doing it on websites targeting children, so it’s not a problem.
When these ads appear on the street in all their twelve foot high glory, parents cannot protect their children from them, and yes, the subject matter is inappropriate for young children. They shouldn’t be exposed to this sort of thing and parents shouldn’t have to be forced to explain to their kids what it all means.
This isn’t a question of freedom of speech, it’s a question of decency and advertising standards. I’m not suggesting that these companies be banned from advertising their products, I’m suggesting that the advertising companies should be more creative in how they go about it.
Let me be absolutely clear, I consider myself a liberated individual with a deep concern for the seeming erosion of freedom of speech in this country. I find the idea of a mandatory internet filter appalling. However, it is clear that there has been a slow but steady moral decline in our society that is only furthered by this type of advertising.
Our children have the same right to innocence that we did, and it’s our job to ensure that they enjoy it until they are an appropriate age.
Ron says:
Aug 2, 2009
I agree you cannot avoid the posters, and I think they are ugly the problem is they are censored (I believe they did that as part of the design). If the problem is that it children might see it then, they have covered themselves their.
The question if we want this stuff to be shown publically is a bigger one, they haven’t really done anything wrong. The stuff they do on telly is much worse graphically and the the internet, is completely uncontrollable.
It’s an eyesore but most other poster are too.
T Harris says:
Jan 20, 2010
“Dammit all, you have to censor television! Now do as I say” – Family Guy, PTV episode, along with “We received 20 complaints about the David Hyde Pierce incident. As you know, 1 person = 1 billion people, so 20 billion people complained.”
I know this is an old post, but didnt today tonight do an “exclusive expose” on this lot, showing them to be evil people (like 99% of the exclusive exposes on that show)?
Be some one that couldnt get it up no doubt.
I think Grandpa Simpson put it right… “Sex, whats wrong with sex? I had sex!” after being told to be quiet (ref: The episode with Simpson and Son elixir).
Sex is necessary for procreation. Those that complain the highest also have kids, where did they come from? must have been the magical elf that cast a spell to cause a pelican to magically appear to retreive a baby from a cabbage patch and drop them down a chimney on an unsuspecting, celibant couple that were sound asleep in two different states in two different beds.
Come on Steve Fielding, ban all positions apart from missionary while blindfolded in the dark so that the couple procreating can avert their eyes from the evil going on under the sheets. Or just ban sex all together, it would stop all the complaints as the human race would end. The ultimate censorship.