The Idiot’s Day
RIGA – I couldn’t have made this up even if I tried.
Judging by the day’s news, today ought to be declared an idiot’s day in Latvia. Especially for those who work in the government and in advertising.
On Friday, the state police launched a *criminal* investigation over the allegations of distributing child pornography by the Latvian National Opera. The poster featuring a naked boy marching nakedly onward in his nekkid fashion advertised the upcoming opera for children “Puppet’s Opera.” (The photo taken from the Telegraf newspaper’s Web site) The boy is Pinocchio, who, according to the creator of the ad, came into this world naked and remained innocent. Unlike us, those who wear clothes.
He remained innocent until foreign tourists – most likely dressed as well – didn’t see a picture of him in a newspaper on a plane. They immediately called the Latvian authorities, which is how this case came about at the end of last week.
The creators of the ad, of course, say that following the logic a half of the artifacts in museums ought to be banned, reminding me of the U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, who, during his tenure, covered up the unholy breasts of the blind justice lady.
It would have been okay, if this was the end. However, this afternoon, an inspector of the state police paid a visit to the online news portal Delfi and requested that the illustration, which I placed on this site, be taken down. The news portal complied. Unfortunately.
The other reason why today’s the Idiot’s Day came from the annals of the language police, which fined the supermarket Spice (pronounced – Spi-tsee) for sloppily throwing out some vowels in its advertising, making the beautiful overly-protected Latvian language suffer.
The billboards, pictured here from Leta news agency, have an asterisk, which deciphers what the message is. It says, “Ziemas Kolekcijas Izpardosana.” Or the Sale of the Winter Collection, in English. In the smaller and visible font, it says, “The same way, we also lowered (samazinajam, in Latvian, which can also mean “to make smaller, or shorter”) our prices.” It’s a clever pun, really – shorter text and smaller prices.
Speaking to the news agency Leta, the state language police boss couldn’t understand the advertising agency’s decision to create this billboard. He once again reminded everyone that “in Latvia, one cannot show text in non-understandable and mutilated state language.”
So, let’s put on the creative caps and think of the advertising campaign within the silly limits of the state law. After all, this isn‘t the first time creative minds have had a run-in with the Latvian authorities.
Last year, the Latvian National Orchestra was threatened with an administrative fine over the use of an archaic long letter O with a diacritic on its advertising.
The next thing you’ll know, they’ll be speaking English.
February 4th, 2008 at 9.00
Well said. This tells you much more about the people who complained than the thing they are complaining about. How sad that any image of a child is now assumed to be sexualised, no matter how innocent.
And I must remember never to attempt a pun in Latvian in case I get fined.