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 PrintableVersion Monthly media and arts columnWhy, oh why, oh why ... don't we complain more?Eleanor Margesson breaches social etiquette by suggesting that we should front up to the makers of adverts and programmes that frustrate Christians. Is there anything in the media that makes you really angry? Have you seen a film recently, or perhaps an advert or even a newspaper article that set your teeth on edge? If so, what have you done about it? Did you complain? If so, who to? A report released by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) at the end of April stated that the numbers of complaints submitted by the general public about non-broadcast advertising fell by 11% during 2004. Considering that the ASA proudly claims on its website that ‘it only takes one complaint to launch an investigation’ it is amazing that there is an average of only 200 complaints for the most high profile cases. Over Christmas 2004 there were a number of adverts in the UK that drew outraged complaints from small numbers of the public. Channel 4 used billboard posters to publicise their Christmas edition of the TV series ‘Shameless’ through a tableau of the cast arranged in the same way as Christ and his apostles in Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper. The main character of the series is positioned in a drunken stupor in the place of Christ. This image drew a mere 264 complaints, while a Mr. Kipling ad showing Mary giving birth in a nativity play caused 806 to contact the ASA. Amazingly, an advert for Shering Health Care selling the morning-after pill as the ‘immaculate contraception’ only raised 182 complaints. Complaining gets resultsThe complaints about the nativity play and the morning-after pill were upheld and the adverts were withdrawn. However, the report on the committee’s decision about the Last Supper deemed that the image was not offensive since it was a parody of an interpretative painting of an event rather than a comment on the Last Supper itself. It is interesting that two European countries should view a similar case very differently. The Girbaud fashion house produced a roadside poster that also replicated the tableau arrangement of Da Vinci’s Last Supper. It placed 12 female models in the places of Jesus and 11 disciples. The last figure is a half-naked male model in the position of John, slumped in an embrace with one of the women. The campaign was judged as blasphemous under French law and offensive to Catholics. Magistrates in Milan also banned the campaign. Perhaps you have made a complaint about the media. Perhaps you even sent an email to the BBC before their controversial screening of Jerry Springer — the Opera because of the reports about its blasphemous content. The full report of the Complaints Committee (which can be found in the complaints section of the BBC website) indicates that it ‘agreed to consider only complaints made after transmission, as these related to the content of the programme as broadcast’. This means that if you complained before the broadcast (as 55,000 did), your complaint became invalid in the discussion that followed. The complaints were not upheld, partly because they were perceived as being part of an emailing campaign organised by Christians but also because ‘the BBC is committed to freedom of expression and … the outstanding artistic significance of the programme outweighed the offence which it caused to some viewers’. It isn’t very EnglishDo we only complain when we are prompted to by others? Why do so few of us put pen to paper and challenge the billboards that stop us in our steps with their provocative messages of sexuality and blasphemy? In her recent book Watching the English, the anthropologist Kate Fox claims that the English have a clearly defined way of moaning in a style that is ‘utterly ineffectual’. She has noticed in her research that we never tend to complain directly to the source of our annoyance, we only ‘whinge endlessly to each other’. We do this, she claims, because moaning is actually socially therapeutic. We enjoy it so much that to suggest a practical solution to the problem is a terrible social faux pas. Apparently, nowhere is this more true than when we talk about TV. Fox cites a recent survey, which places our moaning about TV as only second to moaning about the weather! Yet if we can actually have an impact on the media by contacting censorship bodies such as the ASA and launching investigations, then maybe we should raise our moaning up a notch. How to complainSo how should we go about it? The censorship laws in this country make it very easy to register a complaint against all forms of media output. If you have internet access, a quick visit to the relevant website will enable you to express your thoughts immediately. Alter-natively you can use their addresses or telephone numbers. When expressing our critical opinions it is useful to remember Paul’s words to the Colossian Christians: ‘…clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience’ (Colossians 3.12). This way, the content of what we say will not be damaged by the tone that we use to say it. Some contact details for organisations that can help with complaints: © Evangelicals Now - June 2005 |
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