It’s Safe To Say Your Balls Aren’t Bigger Anymore

Last Updated on: 15th November 2013, 10:53 am

Oh for Christ’s sake. Argos pull controversial advertisement.

The Toronto Argonauts have pulled an advertisement from city subway cars and stations after receiving complaints that it promotes domestic violence.

Oh man, this can’t be good. They didn’t seriously show a giant football player tackling some poor old woman or a dude with a beer gut throwing a beating on a girl with a black eye as they tug of war over the remote during a game, did they? They must have if we’ve gotten to this point.

The ad – which was meant to drum up support for the CFL team — showed defensive end Ricky Foley with the caption, “Home is where the heart is. It’s also where we hurt people.”

Ok, so where’s the problem? Surely there must be a legitimate gripe, given our society’s tendency not to complain unless there truly is reason for it. A person would have to be wrong in the head not to realize that home means home football field and that folks do indeed get hurt there from time to time during games, you know, because it’s a sport. And a person so wrong in the head would never hold so much power as to convince the majority that he isn’t, would he?

Toronto city councilor Mike Layton wrote a letter to the Argos president Bob Nicholson, explaining why he wanted the ad pulled.

“While I understand the intended meaning, my concern is the unintended consequences,” Layton said. “In the context of domestic violence, the ad insinuates that domestic violence in the home is acceptable or normal. The ad may also trigger traumatic responses in the many survivors of domestic violence who are courageously moving forward with their lives.”

I’m torn. I want to applaud the citizens of Toronto for being open minded enough to elect this obviously slower than slow man to public office, but I fear those same citizens may not have thought their well intentioned decision all the way through.

And if he’s not slow, then he needs more to do, because he’s obviously got far too much free time to play with.

David Bedford, the Argos’ vice-president of marketing and communications, said the team pulled the ad almost immediately, but they never considered the posters would be viewed that way.

Of course they didn’t. Not a single person who gave them even a passing moment of thought and wasn’t representing the no fun ticket in city government would.

“It’s very clear it’s a football player in a football uniform talking about promoting the opening game for a football team,” Bedford said Tuesday. “I think it’s pretty common knowledge that football is a contact sport and a physical game.

Ok then, so why did you pull it? I’m sicker than sick of everybody caving in to this kind of PC garbage. I wish that just once somebody would tell these people to jam it right back up their asses and then wipe his own ass with the letter they sent before setting it on fire.

“We didn’t look at it in the context of domestic violence and we probably should have, given that we’ve had a handful of complaints.”

I’ve got news for you, my friend. If you carefully study and change everything that gets a handful of complaints, football wouldn’t exist. It’s a violent sport and people could get injured, you know. And don’t even get me started on those our balls are bigger ads from years ago. Those would never fly…or swing…or get out of the marketing meeting.

Bedford says the team will replace the posters — which went up on June 20 in Toronto Transit Commission subways cars and stations — with advertisements meant for GO Transit trains. The new posters will read “We’re not looking for passengers.”

First question: What the fuck does that nonsense even mean? It sounds unspeakably lame.

And second question: Are you sure that’s a good slogan, what with the battles in most cities over the viability of transit services and how businesses should be run? If you look at this from the corporate point of view, not looking for passengers could be interpreted as your team not wanting customers. Rather standoffish of you, no? It could also mean you don’t want people to ride the bus, which is environmentally irresponsible especially in this age of climate change. Perhaps you need to give more consideration to the unintended consequences of the messages you’re sending.

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