Advertising regulations exist to keep the consumer safe. This is why tobacco companies can't advertise near churches or schools, why hardcore sex is not appropriate for subway station billboard, and why MySpace should be kept away from public parks where hateful children might congregate. But sometimes advertising rules are a bit too strict and are less about protecting the consumer than punishing the advertiser. That's basically the case with Wanted, the Angelina Jolie/James McAvoy assassin flick that already stormed through the U.S. But it's just hitting in Britain, and ads like this one have been yanked — because they glorify Dick Cheney's favorite hobby sport: violence.
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Having exhausted all 18 people willing to try out to be her new best friend, Paris Hilton is heading to the U.K. for another chance. Her reality show Paris Hilton's New BFF has been picked up by Britain's ITV2, and will follow Ms. Hilton in the same routine as her U.S. version, but its working title is the acronym-less Paris Hilton's New Best Friend, to factor in the additional second of attention span Europeans have for Hilton.
When Angelina Jolie headed to Nice, France, to unload her two kids, it wasn't because the doctors there were any better than the U.S. It's because the privacy laws there forbid photographers from taking publishing her picture, or that of her newborns, without her permission. Knowing those photos would fetch a hefty sum — $14 million, it turns out — she set up camp among the French until she blew.
In the United Kingdom, there's a similar phenomenon going on: "libel tourism," where lawsuits get filed in British courts over news reports that celebrities and other plaintiffs couldn't even get on a court docket in their own countries.
That's because the U.K. has some of the strictest libel laws in the world, if you discount North Korea's tendency to make anybody who says something questionable disappear.
Plenty of publishers around the world aren't happy with the British way of doing things, especially because the Internet and global distribution of many publications put their works inside U.K. jurisdiction, opening them up to lawsuits.
But now there's a tiny organization who's on their side. Perhaps you heard of it?
The United Nations. CONTINUED »
While Barack Obama was touring Western Europe to convince the world, and American voters, that he's ready to get serious about diplomacy, foreign oil, and handshaking, he fell into the same trap that Jesse Jackson, George W. Bush, and CNN anchor Kyra Phillips have all fallen into: getting too close to a live mic.
While meeting with British opposition leader David Cameron at the Houses of Parliament in London, the pair spoke a little to close to a ABC News mic. Which was on. CONTINUED »
Two big judgments out of the United Kingdom that, in all likelihood, won't affect us Americans one bit. But since we've all been on the Facebook and engaged in a Nazi orgy once or twice, they're worth schooling you on so you don't run into the same fate as a pair of gentlemen who had to sue to restore their good names. (Well, one of the guys who sued probably only soiled his name more.) CONTINUED »
Slapping "exclusive" on this Sun story about Christian Bale allegedly assaulting his mother and sister, TMZ says The Dark Knight star was taken into custody over the allegations made yesterday by 61-year-old mom Jenny and 40-year-old sister Sharon. This, after police allowed him to attend the premiere of the new Batman flick after the police reports were made. Because if the throng of red carpet reporters are going to struggle getting face time with Bale, it's not like the cops could expect him to answer their questions.
Rupert Murdoch is upset that his BSkyB has to compete in Britain with the BBC on bids for American programming, and wants the publicly funded channel to be banned from the practice. [Variety]
Yes, the woman at right is missing a limb, as are the ladies below. Because of this, each and every day they are faced with unique obstacles most of the rest of the world will never understand, and they’re certainly all the stronger because of it. Good for them. But we’ve got one question: How pretty are they compared to one another?
A new show on the BBC seeks to get to the bottom of that query, so that the world may finally know who is the most beautiful, English, female amputee around.
Are we really going to have to "thank" right-wing zealots like Bill O'Reilly for getting Heinz to yank a mayo ad featuring two dudes kissing? Perhaps. After just a week of airing the ad on British television, the ketchup company has removed the spot — and apologized for it. Heinz has said the ad – where a busy working father rushes his kids off to school, then kisses the (male) cook in the kitchen who prepared their lunches – which wasn't even supposed to be gay themed; the guy making the sandwiches was supposed to represent a New York deli man, not a house-husband.
But then Britain's Advertising Standards Authority received 200 complaints about the ad, which mostly outlined how inappropriate it was to show two fellas smooching on national TV. "It is our policy to listen to consumers," kowtowed a Heinz UK spokesperson. "We recognise that some consumers raised concerns over the content of the ad and this prompted our decision to withdraw it." Nevermind that the ad was already banished from children's programming because Heinz Deli Mayo violates a "no products high in fat, salt and sugar" mandate.
And forgive us for noticing the double standard here: While an ad that benignly portrays two men kissing gets booted from the airwaves, an ad like Snickers' spot from the 2007 Super Bowl, which adds a negative implication about two men kissing, is just fine to air. (In the U.S. at least.) Highlighting aspects of a gay household: bad. Demeaning aspects of a gay household: OK.
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Martha Stewart was not allowed to enter Britain's borders, where she was "planning to speak at the Royal Academy and to hold meetings with several figures in the fashion and leisure industry," because of her criminal record. This is not entirely bad news. The stress this travel blockade brings her will cause her to grow older faster, which will better position her to launch her new magazine, M,, which is for old ladies.
The American press corps isn't the only group anxious to see President Bush leave office in January — the Brits are twiddling their thumbs just as much. The Guardian's Bill Blanko, who refers to said American press corps as a "bunch of toadies," lays into the current leader of the free world, and his list of complaints is lengthy. Among them: "His sneering performance this week at his press conference with Gordon Brown in the Locarno Room (which lobby correspondents much prefer visiting for Foreign Office drinks parties) confirmed that he obviously loathes us. And after his surly verbal swipes at journalists, in between such horrendous Bushisms as "white-guy Methodists" (imagine the row if a British politician used a phrase like that), the feeling was mutual."
But most of all, what really bags Blanko is a little thing called alcohol — and the fact that the president doesn't drink any. And that the D.C. media doesn't drink enough. CONTINUED »
Not that a British court ruling will affect American policy much, but the jury in an inquest as to the cause of Princess Diana and Dodi al-Fayed's deaths ruled the limo's driver, Henri Paul, and the stalkerazzi were to blame. They've been assigned blame for "unlawful killing, grossly negligent driving of the following vehicles and of the Mercedes" that fateful August 1997 night. (The twosome were also assigned some blame, for not wearing their seat belts.) And though the Brits paid $6 million for six months of trial proceedings, where some 250 witnesses testified, plus $16 million for a two-year investigation, the ruling will have little to no affect on criminal sanctions against any of the accused, since the crime was committed in France.
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