Cinema chains refuse to show advert featuring Lord's Prayer | World news | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/n ... rds-prayer

Part of me thinks it'll only lead to pointless arguments, but then they've every right to be heard too. Certainly as much as that fcuking geese advert, or the GoCompare ones... On balance, however, I personally don't want to be seeing anything remotely political in the cinema. Party broadcasts feel endless over here as it is... and who wants to eventually see some cnut hate preacher who isn't Sith?

I'm non-religious, but I fail to see how an advert for 'a faith' can be somehow more irritating or insulting than an advert for 'a product'. If you don't want to buy the product you ignore the ad. If you don't practice the faith you ignore the ad.

I can kind of imagine you'd probably not want to put an advert for Islam into cinemas in Paris right now but beyond that? How insecure would you have to be to be upset or offended by an advert that got a 'U' rating from the BBFC?

Once again, it's someone imagining people might get offended by something, when in reality nobody at all actually would. Like renaming Christmas.

I think the endgame is the problem. Everybody will want a go, and with every shade of opinion. Who goes to the cinema for that, really? I sure as fcuk don't want to see paedo cover-up merchants trying to drum up business before I watch a film. Or Choudary grinning at the camera like butter wouldn't melt, for example.

And how far do you take it in a secular society? Much easier to rule it out altogether than effectively set up an ethics committee, cos that's what you'd need. And the chances of getting agreement even there...

Yeah, but it's not like they'll have to show them all. The cinemas aren't stupid, they know how much they can get away within terms of ads before it starts irritating their audience. So there'll always be say four ads and three trailers before the main film starts, what does it matter if one of those ads is for 'the hindu temple only 100 yards from this cinema' rather than the 'authentic curry house only 100 yards from this cinema'?


We're not. France is, officially, the UK never has been. The head of state is also the head of one of the major religions, which makes us pretty officially not secular. We aren't an overtly religious society but you can't say "we shouldn't allow this because we're a secular society". That's just simply incorrect.

We're a famously tolerant society, which means being tolerant of people of faith just as much as people who have no faith (or even overtly renounce faith) as long as they don't harm anyone else doing it.


Obviously they should also rule out all adverts for tampax and perfume. I mean, I'm never going to need them, so why should I sit there watching ads for them? There's no chance of getting agreement on banning religious ads because, frankly, it's a stupid idea. If we have ads at all, we have to allow ads for everything which is otherwise legal. Otherwise who makes the rules as to which get allowed and which don't?

It'll come down to the cinemas like it does now - and if they think it'll annoy any of their dwindling customers they won't risk it. Religion's a whole other kettle of fish compared to a VW ad or something. I imagine it would be the same with politics. Most people just don't want that crap before a film they've paid a relative small fortune to see. Most go to the cinema for escapism IME.

I mentioned secular in a general sense, though I should have made that clear. As above, the cinemas won't wanna risk it, and I think punters aren't too keen on 'standard' ads as it is. What with them running for half an hour in some places. Stick an ad in promoting Islam in the current climate? Again, I wouldn't put that in the same ballpark as a product ad at all. Beliefs and ideals are something else entirely, that's why I mentioned a committee. It's a form of censorship no matter how you look at it, and somebody somewhere will have to definitively decide.

Technically, shouldn't the headline be 'Cinemas refuse to show any religious or political adverts as they want to remain neutral on all matters'?

I'm happy with the decision. I wouldn't have liked it if I had seen it purely because I'm there to watch a movie. Not to try to change my life. Not for forgiveness. Not for lack of faith. Etc...

Religion (any religion) has no place outside of either your home or your place of worship.


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It's the company that supplies the ads to the cinema that has this policy. The BBC was all in a tizzy because of this yesterday morning. Clare Balding blaming cinemas, news reporting it was the ad company's policy not to carry religious or political messages.

The CofE knows what it's doing, and I bet they knew it would not be screened. What it's doing is trying to get a bit of a buzz around the subject. Of course, it's going to get done media attention, and the Christian minority will wring its hands about how dreadful this ever secular society is.

If I want to hear the Lord's Prayer, I'll hang around in churches.

Can you imagine if they showed a reading from the Quran? The whole nation would be up in arms.

This world is messed up at the moment.

Also... Religious discrimination? Do one. Which religion are they discriminating against? As far as I remember I haven't seen adverts for any religion in the cinema.


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Possibly for multiple different reasons .


I think thats just a badly used phrase. In this case they're possibly claiming 'discrimination against religion as a whole' rather than 'discrimination against a particular religion'. The advert broker's policy is fair enough. Although as I say we don't all have the right to stop them showing adverts we individually don't like, it's up to them to decide (essentially) which adverts are going to produce the least amount of general pissed-off-edness among the cinema-going population while bringing in the most income for them. That's the business they're in.

The company have put themselves in a bit of a pickle though because they did run both 'vote yes' and 'vote no' adverts in the run up to the Scottish independence vote (purely in Scotland, obviously). Apparently the 'no religion,no politics' clause was brought in after that, which possibly suggests they got a lot of negative feedback from running those ads.

Personally, I'm with Richard Dawkins on this one - his reaction to the whole thing is apparently 'if you're offended by something as trivial as people praying, you deserve to be offended.'

I have to agree with the general consensus – if they refuse to do all they are on firmer ground. Once they let one (The Church) have a message then they will need to allow all religions (and secular groups) have adverts

Of course the Scientologist could get Tom Cruise to do it – and it could run into the film – if done “correctly” the whole film could seem to be one long advert

One could even have pop up adverts a sort of “Super Product Placement” – As James Bond takes a sip of Martini someone could pop into frame and speak about the evils of drink and how the devil will claim your soul

I believe the spec for DVDs & BluRays have a section that allows for that kind of thing. It was intended to allow 'in place advertising', so it would probably be more planned that when James Bond sinks a martini you get an ad for some brand of alcohol rather than a public service message. However it's such a whallopingly bad idea (imagine how the sales would tank if people started getting adverts in the middle of their films) that, as far as I know, it's hardly ever been used apart from the DVD of The Matrix which used it as the technology behind the 'white rabbit' feature for essentially P-in-P DVD extras. It seems there are limits to the stupidity of even Hollywood studios..

Pretty much what I thought. The company distributing the ads doesn't allow for ANY political or religious advertising so it's a complete non-story.

Cinema company that banned Lord's Prayer advert lashed by many tongues | Media | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/n ... ys-cameron

Imagine sitting there with your popcorn and Cameron appearing onscreen - IT'S TOO GREAT A RISK!

This

Several times a year we get pretty much the same story. "Company applies blanket policy to all religious groups. Accused of discrimination"