A sting too far?
It’s all to easy to drone on… bla bla bla… PC (political correctness, just incase you thought I was geekin’ again!) has gone too far again… bla bla…
but it has!
The Barclays advert, where a guy gets stung by a bee has been pulled from TV!!!
The reasons I’m sad about this are not quite the obvious ones…
1) Bees DO sting, if we never show the consequences of a bee sting… how will children ever learn! No really… I’m serious! …do we start removing all danger from our TV screens???
2) “More than 20 people complained they or someone they knew had nearly died from an adverse reaction like the one shown.”
So what? Things happen in life, deal with it and move on people! I nearly got run over last week… do I want all car ads banned, showing drivers going faster than 20mph? No.. jeebus, if you’re that sensitive, to what is a light hearted advert, then its you that needs help pal.
Pandering to these kind of complaints is making us a nation of downtrodden wussies! (is that a real word? I dunno…)
3) “We noted that many people face the reality that they might suffer a severe allergic reaction to a bee or wasp sting and therefore, despite the farcical turn of events, the ad was offensive to them.”
How exactly was it offensive? Did it glorify bees stinging humans? Did it promote how to get stung??? No. If they’re still “suffering” from the trauma of a bee sting (which can be serious for people with anaphylaptic shock, granted) get counselling you loser!
4) The needs of the few outweighing the needs of the many!
What about all those people who laughed, chuckled and smiled when this ad was on TV? Life is far too serious n heavy to be removing light heartedness in any form from TV!!!
Depriving me of the ad, adversly affects my sanity… hmmm, I wonder if we could get more than 200 people to complain in that way? (add a comment below if you agree!)
So I have a cunning plan, this advert should not of been pulled… but, in light of the fact that nearly 200 people were affected by it, lets be sensible…
Channel 4 always amuses me with the way that following an episode of Hollyoaks, whatever has been an “issue”… death, pregnancy, drugs etc… they offer help and guidance on their website following the program. (we used to run a book, which issue would be the focus of help each episode)
How about a guideline that balances the humour of an ad with a URL for advice at the end?
The people traumatised by this ad NEED help!!!
rant over… hi how are you? 
