World's Best Rejected/Banned Advertisements

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Some of these may warrant commentary.   Thoughts, anyone?        ...

Needless to say, some are undeniably in poor taste.  Many clichégenically, unapologetically, sexist.  For instance, these from our very own (rabidly right-wing and very wealthy) hosting service, GoDaddy:

Why we are still hosting with these jerks, I sure dunno.

Others, largely philanthropic, fall into a different, mildly more interesting category of censorship.  See for example this one or this one.  These ads seem to pose an actual threat/provocation to the comfort of, you know, whatever Zizek is calling it these days. 

Some of the reasons given for censorship border, predictably, on the plain ridiculous, for instance:  "The viewer is threatened with hi-jacking, presumably if the viewer does not support the Foundation."  Some of the legal decisions and language are, predictably, weird, standards for "decency" as a kind of default seeming not to have changed much since Lenny Bruce.  But it's odd that such standards seem to apply equally and in the exact same moral register for ads designed to create anxiety over lipstick as for those seeking to end poverty.  All of which seems to have to do with the boundaries for acceptable language in the phrasing of complaints, more than anything else.

Often legal language is forced to state the obvious, for instance in response to the standard complaint alleging that this series from Barnardo's of Great Britain was somehow glorifying, thus inspiring meth addiction among infants:

a. one advertisement showed a photograph of a new-born baby who had a cockroach crawling out of his mouth. Text below the headline claimed "Baby Greg is one minute old. He should have a bright future. Poverty is waiting to rob Greg of hope and spirit and is likely to lead him to a future of squalor. We can't end poverty but we can provide the practical skills that Greg and thousands of others in the UK need to stop it predetermining their lives. Don't let poverty destroy a future. Call us on [telephone number] or visit [internet address] now";

b. another advertisement showed a photograph of a new-born baby who had a syringe in her mouth. Text below the headline claimed "Baby Mary is three minutes old. Thanks to poverty she faces a desperate future. Poverty is waiting to crush Mary''s hope and ambition and is likely to lead her to a future of drug abuse ..." and

c. another advertisement showed a photograph of a new-born baby who had a meths bottle in her mouth. Text below the headline claimed "Baby Amy is two minutes old. Poverty has already mapped out her future. Poverty is waiting to destroy Amy's hope and joy and is likely to lead her to a future of alcoholism ..."

1. The complainants objected that the advertisements were offensive, shocking and unduly distressing, especially if seen by children.

2. Some complainants objected that the advertisements were irresponsible and could encourage emulation by children. [...]

1. Complaints upheld
The Authority considered that the photographs in the advertisements would be interpreted as stylised illustrations of the babies' possible lives. It considered that, because they were unlikely to read national newspapers, children were unlikely to be distressed by the advertisements. The Authority acknowledged the serious message of the advertisements but nevertheless considered that the advertisers had used shocking images to attract attention and that the photographs were likely to cause serious or widespread offence. It told the advertisers not to repeat the advertisements.

Why the standard charge of "emulation" is brought up in the first place is interesting, because it betrays at least a somewhat sophisticated notion of how advertising images function, and particularly how we've been (at least traditionally) conditioned to experience them.  But here, as in many of these, the crime is that the image is just too literal, too blunt, as if seeking to remove the potential for ironic distance (however impossible, really) were itself a crime.  The images are just too "likely" to cause "widespread offense" (but to who?- the happy consumer of course), and so are inherently worse, no matter motivation or real context, than those in which the deliberate creation of anxiety is more subtle, or at least historically sanctioned.  I ask you, are not such selectively pessimistic views of society the real offense?

Anyway the rest of the ads mostly fall into the "indecent" or (often justifiably, though again inherently selectively) "sexist" categories;  99.9% have to do with sex.   Apparently the sexualizing of children (or re-sexualizing, as Foucault might have said) is still taboo. 
Many of these are just too daring in their reversals/parodies (rather weak and ultimately conventional parodies) of gender roles, or religious figures.  The fact that advertising is only allowed to transgress so far is surely indicative as well. 

There are also the by now mostly impotent Adbusters-type spoof.