MLA’s meat-eating Ganesha ad cleared by advertising watchdog
Meat and Livestock Australia’s controversial lunch-of-the-gods ad has not breached any rules, the Advertising Standards Board has decided.
The ad, created by The Monkeys, depicts gods, goddesses, religious figures and aliens all sharing lamb in an atheist’s backyard, and aims to position the lamb as the meat which more people can eat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8kuoFGgj8s
Regardless of whether its been cleared by the Ad Board, this campaign still makes me feel sad. In what’s meant to be a campaign about uniting Australians, all I’ve seen from the commentary about it is how minorities should put up and shut up because those most in power say so. Especially the comments around how Indians can’t get offended because their god has too many arms and therefore isn’t real. Fine if you think that, but it goes against what the campaign is meant to be selling, right? If they’re trying to create a platform about belonging, all they’ve done is ostracise people. How Australian.
Monkeys, I think its time to roll this idea on.
The ad is offensive to all religions and should be banned. Eating animals in the cruel meat industry should also be stopped and let all animals free to roam.
Love the ad, creative and fun!
Why do the religious revel in their supposed offence? They’re so quick to reveal their judgements and condemnations, yet so slow at showing their compassion. In actual fact, the only thing that should cause offence is the violence inflicted on the poor lamb, everything else is a fiction of the mind.
All religions are made up stories and ideas anyway.
Sick of the offence brigade.
I agree that religions are made up. I disagree that an ad is an appropriate place to make the point. I also think this ad doesn’t work, and I find it offensive because Mohammed isn’t featured, which illustrates that the creators do respect and take seriously the beliefs of one religion and the fact depicting the prophet would cause offence (and maybe even a fatwa).
At the end of the day, it’s really a poor idea.
Religion, sex and poo jokes are the lowest hanging fruit.
They are trolls and doing it for the hits. Short term benefits, long term anguish for the brand.
Good luck, trolls. See you in lamb hell.
Muhammad did feature but not in person but in a phone call saying he had to do school pickups!
While it doesn’t depict Muhammad, him phoning it in is still offensive as it demonstrates MLA respected (or pandered) to one religion’s proscription over the traditions of others. Let’s face it, because of the history associated with depictions of Muhammad, MLA didn’t want to risk it. Generating a bit of outrage is a long held MLA marketing tactic. They calculated the risk was low of other religious groups having a response on the scale Islamic groups would. I’d like to see MLA justify that stance, but I doubt they could articulate it particularly well. After all, these are amateur marketers, not rhodes scholars. Knowledge of religion, its history and culture is well outside their understanding.
When Salman Rushdie released the Satanic Verses the controversy simmered for months before it was banned in India – yes, India.
Don’t expect the Indian High Commission to back down on this.
This like using catholic priests and nuns shown in a condom advertisement. There are sexual allegations and convictions against them. One can argue that they don’t show them using the condoms, like they said that lord Ganesha is not eating lamb in that ad.