The flap over Dice-K's Japanese beer commercial. One commenter brilliantly writes:
I'm not pithy enough to find a different phrase, but "inane overregulation" does not do justice to something that is a clear violation of the principles of free speech.
Government officials are generally scared and illogical when it comes to advertising - they hate the fact that advertisers don't have to answer to any kind of real moral code outside of the FCC, and they find it reprehensible.
For some reason, they feel that beer advertisement shouldn't be about trying to get people to buy your product, but about trying to convince people to debate about the merits of drinking. That's part of why every beer commercial now has to come with the tagline "please drink responsibly," or has to actually be a debate about drinking responsibly.
The thought process is "why should beer companies get to say what they want in ads when alchohol causes so much damage in society?"
Those will never, ever, be two different issues to them.
Government officials are generally scared and illogical when it comes to advertising - they hate the fact that advertisers don't have to answer to any kind of real moral code outside of the FCC, and they find it reprehensible.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, they feel that beer advertisement shouldn't be about trying to get people to buy your product, but about trying to convince people to debate about the merits of drinking. That's part of why every beer commercial now has to come with the tagline "please drink responsibly," or has to actually be a debate about drinking responsibly.
The thought process is "why should beer companies get to say what they want in ads when alchohol causes so much damage in society?"
Those will never, ever, be two different issues to them.