As some of you may already know what keeps involved in fandom discussions long after the curtain closes has a lot to do with the continual societal questions the show/movie/book/play offers. Just like in fandom in real life what holds my attention aren't the debates with clear cut answers or discussions that actually bring about solutions but the discussions that bring up new questions and ideas for us to think about and in turn ask ourselves new questions about what we believe and how that reflects in our every day life.
That's why I think the following clip I'm going to link to is an important place to start asking ourselves questions.
A show I want to talk about isn't a scripted drama or comedy, it's actually a show about advertising on the only network channel in Australia that has no advertising, known as
The Gruen transfer. The ABC which is funded by the government didn't allow the following clip to be shown. The clip however has been made available online with all warnings about it's content included.
You may be asking yourself what is in this clip that is so bad it would be pulled from TV. Well the clip shows an ad made as a result of The Gruen transfer segment "the pitch". The Pitch involves two advertising agencies receiving a pitch based on something difficult to advertise and having to put together a commercial for it. Last week the challenge was to make a commercial advertising the benefits of having the Cane Toad (a notorious Australian pest) as a pet. Many of the commercials are funny, a little risqué and occasionally serious.
This week's pitch involved the idea of "Fat Pride" where agencies had to address shape discrimination in Australia. The agency that was allowed to show their ad based the commercial on the idea that fat Australians were saving our economy by consuming so many resources, that ad you can view on The Gruen Transfer website
here.The ad that isn't there the ABC have made available on another website. I won't tell you what it is about as when you go to the website there is a brief description of the ad and its' intent. If you feel up to it then watching the linked video on the site, particularly the discussions afterwards by the panel is very enlightening.
I came to this footage knowing the controversy and having read the jokes. When I watched the whole video this afternoon I felt challenged by my previous view of this ad and the reasons behind it and in a rare moment for me I agreed and understood each view point held by the panel and was challenged by all the ideas I was presented with.
So in the spirit of being challenged
watch this.