Trident chewing gum advert for being 'deeply offensive'!!

[zephyrcat]

Aparently it is deeply offensive to black and caribbean people.

Eh? How?

It's a bloody annoying ad but I never saw it as being offensive?!

Not too long ago I was ridiculed on here for not thinking that the 'Irish are thick' stereotype is funny

I am not one for overt politcal correctness but I think that we sometimes need to stop and think about what we are saying and whether it is hurtful or not.

And I'm not talking about the producers of that ad - they are just offensive.

peachy - I'm from Norfolk and I know EXACTLY what you mean. I don't have the accent (brought up in London overspill town) but dh did and had to shed it in order to be taken seriously jobs-wise. I think it's a shame: your accent is about who you are.

carmenere: that is overt political correctness. covert political correctness would be saying the offensive words and whispering that you're sorry.

???

Crap isn't it?

But its not justa ccent- if some people in Somerset find out where I am from, its even worse! I've been turned away from jobs because i'm from Bridgwater (in taunton), and when I had DS1 several friends simply wouldn't come visit because they'd have to enter that town.

Its all shite.

One of the good things about being away from home, TBH. At east nobody an recognise the theoretical social implications of my home town, getting married and ditching the 'rough' surname helped too!

I met someone from home at Uni once, we both felt the same. Yet both of us were bright, strong women, doing well at Uni, and both employed by the Uni as mentors. Go figure.

And dh's accent....... !! Somerset / Devonian border. And strong.

Mum taught me to drop mine if I want, I have an exceptionally posh voice when I need it. But I like my accent. I am part of Somerset, I ws part of the community there, why is that a problem?

good for you. sometimes I wish I did have an accent, but it would be fake (no-one at my school spoke with the norfolk accent). But it was also a rough town (because of the London overspill thing). people used to cower when I told them where I was from.

I did my dissertation on the changing accents there in fact. it was fascinating.

Carmenere: I just mean that what you're describing is political correctness. the thing that gets slagged off for being silly (short people being "vertically challenged" and the like) is an extreme (and often fictional) version of it.

I haven't seen this advert.

But there's another, fairly similar one, which is for some (nominally?) Caribbean food or drink, in which they refer constantly to how laid back and unbusinesslike people from the Caribbean are. Apparently it's all just shacks and people without shoes, hanging out, having a great time. They seem like such a lovely simple happy people. The whole thing has me throughly .

They had people in this environment acting all businessy and in a hurry ... so funny! Seeing them acting like they were businesspeople! Ha!

Was it for Lilt? Or some sort of rum? At any rate, I was always surprised it was allowed ...

NQC - I've always thought the Lilt one was offensive. Seems more obviously out-of-order than the Trident one, to me (tho' take Greeny's points about body language etc. Tend to listen to ads rather than watch them, so missed all of that.)

The Lilt one just had me completely . I never understood how it was legal. I mean ... given how few images of the Caribbean we get on mainstream tv, I bet loads of people think that really is what the Caribbean is like, just a bunch of beach huts ... Gah.

Lilt was 'To-tal gridlock'.
I didn't think that one was so dodgy - it was at least complimentary, and was expressing laid-backness in a nice way.

I used to laugh at that one.

I think the idea of the Lilt one was to laugh at the 'business types' though I completely see your point.

True, I guess you could see the Lilt one as mocking business people and rushing around.

But you could totally also see it as mocking the idea of Black people doing anything other than lying around on a beach goofing off.

You could indeed.

And as a business person you might not like being mocked anyway.

I suppose.

Well, I'm not bothered by the idea of people mocking business people, tbh.

I just feel this sort of advert plays it both ways to a certain extent - people who are racist will see in it a validation of their beliefs, iyswim.

Or maybe you would think that they have the "right" ambitions. Laid back and enjoying life.

I think if the Lilt ad upset people (well I'd like to think) they would complain. The Trident one was much more offensive because of the whole "Chalky" generation and that hideous "I can speak black just like you" accent. It makes me cringe cringe cringe and it's unbelievably offensive to me.

What it all comes down to is one man's meat another man's poison. The ad offended me, it might not have offended another black person. I complained (along with others) and it was pulled. Result I think!

I never thought the Lilt ads were rascist. I think they were poking fun of people with busy lives. I did find the Trident ad absolutly cringeworthy and was pleased to see it had been pulled.

Thank God and well done Marslady for complaining.