The Worst Ad Evever?

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Political correctness, if not dead, is at least comatose. It was fun while it lasted, and a hobby for some, but it was not sustainable against the onslaught of derision brought on by its self-perpetuating stridency and farcicality. I think its nadir came with the 1979 edict (Radio New Zealand) that the term man-hole be replaced with person-hole. There are of course other examples. But, those are in the past. These days it appears that the final and sole bastion of the PC Brigade is food. There are still those who consistently and insistently tell us what is healthy and, more often, unhealthy for us to eat and drink. Even there it is often a moving feast, if you will forgive the play on words. This week a glass of red wine is good for us; next week, likely as not, it is not. However, one of the more consistent and possibly accurate targets for the PC Brigade is soft drink. I must admit that they have come up with a substantial body of evidence that excessive drinking of soft drinks is bad for us. Certainly, they have changed my thinking and I have moved from standard Coke to Zero, though I have never drunk much of any soft drink so any improvement is negligible. Still, I think they have a point. And that is why the following ad., reproduced lately on Facebook, would be so horrifying to them. In fact, I am prepared to say that even when it was first run in the 1950s it was so out of place, so inaccurate, so stupid, it was farcical and possibly dangerous. You wouldn’t be able to run it these days; possibly it shouldn’t have been allowed to have run in those days. But, Fryday is taking itself too seriously, just like the PC Brigade. Let’s just accept that this ad will never ever run again, and sit back and have a laugh at quite possibly the most stupid ad. ever inflicted on us.

Dear God #2

Trump Annex

Office of The President of the United States of America.

1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500, USA

Telephone: You’re Crazy, right? Twitter: #millionsofpeopleloveme.

Dear God

How is the family? Son well?

Having a great time here. It’s great. Of course, we have the frustration with the criminal media. They are still trying to justify getting it so wrong. Still! Can you believe it? Stupid. That’s what they are. Bad hombres.

Anyway, let’s move on.

God, we should talk. I have a deal for you. Now, you know how you have always wanted a piece of Saudi Arabia? Well, come November I think I can put a deal together that’s the best deal I have ever done. And nobody does a deal better than I do. I do great deals. That right. The deal is this. I have this army—a great army—that is doing nothing. Where is the commercial sense in that? If you are not shooting bullets nobody is making bullets. The Free Market suffers. The Arms Industry suffers. And when that happens everybody suffers. Yes, they do.

So, what you and I are going to do, God, is to put an end to suffering. Yes, we are. We are going to start a war. A war with Saudi Arabia. A great war. Nobody has built a war like I will build this war. I will use my army. All you have to do is move in when my army has taken the country and turn all the Arabs into Christians so they don’t come back at us. You get all those new Christians. I get the oil.

Nobody loses. Right? Except maybe the Arabs.

I say we will do it in November. I will have run out of executive orders to sign by then.  Do we have a deal? Do we get our people together to talk it through? Maybe hook up your son with mine? Better still, Ivanka? That would be great.

By the way, thanks for the great idea on how to do the all-time job on the legacy of Obama. Came to me last night. Must have come from you because I was sitting in my shorts and bathrobe watching Cecil C. Sackrider on late night television at the time.

Inspired, God. We make a great team, God. Yes, we do. A great team.

Donald J. Trump

President of the United States of America.

Fryday Feminity and Feminism

This week we had International Women’s Day. I imagine that to many women it does not mean much. Even in this internet age the great majority of women would know March 8 as just another day, and in some cases and in some religions they struggle to be recognised, let alone celebrated.

For others, however, it was proclaimed as a day of affirmation of (variously) women’s rights, equality and equity. None of which Fryday has an issue with. Though it would rather have been spared the excruciating and embarrassing attempt at female solidarity and pride by the National party’s female caucus lead by Paula Bennett. The proliferation of proclamations claiming that the world would be a better pace if “ruled” by women also began to get a bit tiresome. Have none of them heard of Donald Trump?

What did strike me as interesting though was the juxtaposition with another announcement this week. That was that VietJet Aviation, a privately run discount airline also known as VietJet Air, listed on the Hochiminh Stock Exchange. Why is that interesting for any reason than it being another example of thoroughly modern communist country truly embracing capitalism? Well, it is because this airline is renowned, or notorious depending on your perspective, for once having had bikini clad flight attendants. The airline was fined by the Vietnam’s aviation authority, but a video of the bikini-clad girls dancing down the aisle went viral and VietJet received international publicity that it could otherwise not hope to emulate. Ticket sales soared. The carrier eventually expects to eclipse state-run Vietnam Airlines in the domestic market, and it also has big goals for its international operations.

Wonder what I am getting it?

Am I offended by its overt sexism? Am I even befuddled by the curious juxtaposition of bikini and gather belt and stockings (see photo)? Yes, I guess.

But what really intrigued me on the International Women’s Day is that the person that contrived this, authorised this and took VietJet to new heights is a woman, CEO Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao. What is more, Thao is the only Vietnamese to make Forbes' list of the world's 100 most powerful women.

Now, I am going to go out on a limb here and state that as much as Ms Bennett’s video was well-intentioned it did come across as almost an apology for being a woman. It was less of a celebration than a condescension.  Whilst I would not I think ever see Paula Bennett and or Judith Collins in bikinis, I would hope that they would acknowledge that Ms Thao’s approach, whilst different, is no less compelling as a manifestation of the fact that feminism and femininity are powerful weapons.

On a broader front, let us also now consider that the criticism and claims of sexist and sexism can often be countered by the judicious and astute use of sexuality, as Ms Thao amply proved.

FFFL

Among the cute animal footage, the quizzes and the omnipresent and now largely repetitive slagging off of Donald Trump in Facebook, even the casual voyeur can often find something of real merit. I am not talking of the so-called inspirational and aspirational quotes that proliferate. Nor am I talking of the plethora of posts that threaten to reveal who we were in a past life or, macabrely, predict when we shall die.
No, I am talking about the posts that invite us on a shared journey into our earlier lives. This life, not a past one. They usually comprise photos of the way we were. In extreme cases, and I am guilty of this, they may even be our baby photos, though, in my case, what interest my low-slung nappies and slobbering lips had to the Facebook Fraternity was certainly called into question.
But, what is fascinating about some of these posts is not what they are, but what they represent. I have a very good friend: a woman with a fine and now adult family. She and I have been friends for about 40 years, though we lost touch for a long time—time enough for her to have her family, for them to grow up, and for me to have forgotten what she looked like 40 years ago.
Last week I was reminded.
Her daughter, a beautiful young woman in her own right, posted a photo of herself as a young child—perhaps four—dancing with my friend, her mother, then probably in her 20s. Being a photo, one can only imagine the exuberance of that dance. However, it is patently there. And there is also in that photo a sense of the now—not the past, as short as it was, nor the future that would challenge them both. But of the moment, of the present, of the share joy of being together, captured so many years ago in one photo and shared just last week by the daughter to celebrate her mother’s birthday.
And to share the love.
The term share the love can these days be rather trite. Nevertheless, it can often be an expression of sheer and sincere intent. Facebook, for all its faults, can be good for that,
Thank You Mark Zuckerberg
Thank you Sarah.