Please Tell Me The People Are Kidding!

Growing up on the South Side of Chicago, I remember when the Nation of Islam had a number of restaurants and bakeries throughout the community. There was a restaurant/grocer in my neighborhood that supposedly had pretty good burgers. Every now and then, my mom would send us there (or we'd go with a friend) to get some fresh ground beef from the butcher. Then, one day one of the neighborhood kids mistakenly asked a none too educated waitress for a hamburger and the woman flipped out and informed the child that they didn't have "hamburgers" they had "beef burgers." Well, that just set off a firestorm of mischievous kids going into the store just to agitate "the Muslims" by repeatedly asking to order hamburgers. I never did it but I did witness it a couple of times and it was hard not to laugh at the woman's literal interpretation of the word hamburger and mistaking it for a slur against her faith ('cause they don't eat ham[pork]).

This stupid story about the AFA wanting to boycott travel to Australia because they use the word "bloody" in a commercial, reminds me of that woman's ignorance.

The American Family Association (AFA), which has more than two million members and leads campaigns against abortion and gay rights, was upset with the bikini-clad model Lara Bingle's use of "bloody" and "hell" in the ad's tagline.

AFA members are expected to bombard Tourism Australia with thousands of emails and phone calls in coming weeks to vent their feelings.

Members are also expected to boycott Australia as a holiday destination.

"I just feel pretty sure the typical American family who is watching TV with their children and they're exposed to this ad are going to be upset," AFA director of special projects, Randy Sharp, said.

"I don't want my children to hear that phrase.

"It's a shocking phrase because we're not familiar with it.

"I guess they use it all the time in Australia, but it's a foreign language here so I think it'll have a negative impact rather than positive."

However, Tourism Australia was not worried by the prospect of an AFA campaign, a spokesman said.

The ad's North American target market was well-educated, high-earning, widely travelled people from Canada and the US west coast, the Tourism Australia spokesman said.

"And I think we have the right campaign to do the job," he said.

I somehow think that the AFA crowd isn't likely to be rounding up their non-contraceptive taking wives and packs of children and traveling to Australia anyway. The ads, admittedly, are for an educated and affluent crowd. Decidedly, those who cannot understand that different words have different meanings and connotations in different countries, aren't part of the targeted audience. But still, don't these people have a better mission in life? Why can't they go feed some poor people and stay away from the television if so much of it is offensive and inappropriate for their children to watch?

(link via Shakespeare's Sister)