I am not renowned for my fine sense of humour and I have been known to take the huff easily when I perceive that Wales is being insulted in even the smallest way. That Pot Noodle "miners" advert really p****d me off, for example.
However I was surprised to see that 21 people had made a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority about the Penderyn distillery advertisements on the grounds that they were anti Welsh and portrayed Welsh people in a stereotypical way. I thought that they were quite funny. Rather than maintaining the stereotypes that Male Voice Choirs are boring, Welsh Rugby fans are anti English and that Welsh women are thick I saw the advertisements as ridiculing those stereotypes.
I think the whole series is funny. They are about a Welsh product; they are created in Wales, its us showing we have a sense of humour about ourselves. I am a Valleys girl and chuckled like fun over them.
ReplyDeleteWhere I did nearly loose it was yesterday listening to BBC radio Wales on the subject where they had the man in charge of Penderyn and Christine Chapman. AM for the Cynon Valley being very sensible and straight about the subject, most of the people who phoned in were ok too, then they had a guy from some where in North East Wales, I think he was in Wrexham, but not too sure about that go OTT about the legitimacy of the answer to the existentialism question in the advert – he went on and on and on, saying he was an expert and they used the wrong man in Søren Kierkegaard as the answer blah blah blah – now he pissed me off and I just hoped not too many people heard this boring diatribe , which totally mised the point of the discussion.May be a few Penderyn’s would have hepled him.
I liked the choir one, myself.
ReplyDeletePenderyn have got the last laugh - the 'Existentialism' advert, and the complaint about it, have garnered more publicity than they could have paid for via TV advertising. Rather like the 'fcuk' adverts, although I do believe that they hadn't banked on the response that the adverts caused.
ReplyDeleteI am waiting to hear my first self deprecating mention of that phrase from a group of young women out on the town. It may even become a t-shirt, like those with 'Apprentice' or 'Dragon's Den' catch phrases advertised in the back of Private Eye..