When I was in London this passed weekend, I stayed with a
friend from high school. In order
to get the full experience, she wanted to take me to China Town for
dinner. Right in front of the
restaurant we went to there was a movie theater. On the billboard for the theater, the words “FCUK THE
OLYMPIX COME SEE A MOVIE,” existed in big bold black letters. As I looked at this sign, a lot of
things ran through my head. Is
that allowed? Aren’t having the
Olympics an honor? Doesn’t this
make the theater look bad? Who
would support a theater that seems to be against one of the greatest cultural
events in the world? While the
words on the theater may not have meant to evoke these feelings, it did. The words were not funny, they were
offensive, and I am not even from England. I wonder how the people who have called London home for many
years felt about this. I think there
is a line to be drawn here and this billboard should have been taken down. Doesn’t this make the city look bad to
the millions of tourists that have traveled to London for the Olympics? My question is, should something like
this be allowed as a form of Advertising, or for the sake of the city’s
reputation, and the respect of the Olympics should this sign be taken down?
It is shocking that this was an official billboard, but I don’t think this billboard necessarily reflects on London, so much as it does on the individual who created the advertisement it contains. I’m sure certain misspellings were done, on purpose, in an effort to skirt certain rules and laws, but they portray the designer as ignorant. There has been much controversy around the uncontrolled usage of the words “London,” “2012” and “Olympics,” so that may be the origin of the word “Olympix,” and “FCUK” is an easy way to imply another word.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it’s kind of a funny blunder. FCUK is actually a common abbreviation for the UK branch of French Connection, and that was my first thought when I read this comment (why would a movie theater be referring to French Connection?). It’s just silly.
It would be interesting to hear the response of locals to this advertisement, but I don’t know that it needs to be removed. It is one individual’s response, and as a citizen of a country that believes in the freedom of speech, I think it should be left, as is. If ignorance is the image that the individual (or theater, for that matter) wishes to portray, that is a personal choice. In my opinion, there are far more disturbing images, in the media, that should be expunged.
Yeah that is really rude. Sometimes people try to advertise by being funny. PR,journalism, and Ad majors really have to be careful about that because it could create backlash.I wonder how other people viewed it and whether it had a certain target audience.
ReplyDeleteI agree! That is very offensive; however, there is not much that can be done to prevent it. I would not be surprised if the city took measures to try to prevent that kind of thing, but in the preservation of free speech, there is not much they can do. This does seem to be a general theme. Londoners as a whole do not seem that excited about hosting the Olympics.
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