No “Sex in the City” of Jerusalem
by Rebecca Honig Friedman
… or in Petach Tivka, reports Haaretz:
Outdoor advertising company Maximedia has notified the distributors of ‘Sex in the City’ Forum Films and its publicist, Golan Advertising - that the movie based on the popular TV series of the same name will not be allowed to advertise in Jerusalem and Petah Tikva, because the word “sex” appears on the signs.
“The news was a great shock,” said a spokesman for Forum Films said. “We have not asked to advertise nudity, or messages that may be offensive to the general public and the ultra-Orthodox community in particular. Nevertheless, this is the name of the movie. We feel that it is ridiculous to prohibit us from advertising the brand without naming it,” he added.
It seems he misunderstood: using the word “sex,” and thus acknowledging the existence of the act, is indeed a message that offends the ultra-Orthodox community. But since they’re not quite the film’s target audience, the advertising would have been lost on them anyway, so the city’s actually done the film’s distributor a big favor by saving them the cost of wasted advertising — and giving them an opportunity for free publicity in the news.
Posted on May 20th, 2008 Filed under: Uncategorized |
Woe is the rest of the city that won’t get to see the advertisements. There’s always the Internet?
Ay yi yi!!
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=4901770&page=1
The cities requested that the word “sex” be omitted from the advertisements.
Rather than drop the three-letter word, the film’s distributor decided that a famous movie about sex didn’t really need billboards and refused to put up ads that read “… in the City.” Arye Barak, the spokesman for the distribution company Forum Films, said that it is ridiculous to omit the word because it is part of the title. “There was no way we were going to give in,” he said. “It just doesn’t make sense visually to have three dots instead of the word sex, followed by ‘in the city.’”
“Who doesn’t know the word sex?” Barak said. “If we’re following this rule, then Knesset member Ofir Penis should not appear in Jerusalem. Even George Bush can have a double meaning in English.”
advertisements or not, It’s gonna be amazing - I already have tickets booked for Thursday in Tel Aviv. The shlep will be worth it to see it in a city that feels more like a city than jerusalem.