Speaking of ads that make you sick, if I did have the option of tagging outdoor ads with “this sucks”, I know where I would start… with that serial on Zee TV which ran those terrible teasers all across Mumbai and Delhi last month which said among many other appalling things – “Bete ek mannat, betiyan ek bojh” (boys are a blessing, girls a burden) and “Bete banaatey kanoon, betiyan khaana” (boys make the law, girls, food). Puke. “Bete chalaye vansh, betiyan silai machine“. Puke. [Boys carry on the generation, girls run sewing machines]
[pic courtesy : mid-day]
Various organizations in Delhi protested against this campaign and the Delhi Police ordered that these hoardings be removed. And, and, here is what Ashish Kaul, Senior Vice President at Zee Network has to say – I don’t have means to replace the hoardings overnight simply because of a protest. Yes, indeed, poor man.
But hang on, there is hope. For this is only the first part of the campaign, according to Kaul – the campaign has been conceived on what we have seen since childhood, and the second campaign brings to the fore the myth that the male child is superior than the female child. As it happens, I did see the hoardings for the second part of the campaign and they go on and on about how we were trying to say that girls are indeed superior to boys in the family and hey, the first campapign was just to get your attention so on and so forth…
And while I google furiously while writing this, I find that Star TV has a similar serial about to go on air called —- Paraaya Dhan! And that Zee and Star TV have been at loggerheads claiming to be the “originnal” beityaan people. The ad for the Star TV serial raises this socially aware, thought-provoking question – ” betiyaan apni ya paraya dhan?” (girls, our own or someone else’s wealth?) – not only are we calmly writing about women as “wealth” and property, wer are also raising a question about who this wealth belongs to?
1 comment
Comments are closed.