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1 June, 2002
My puritannical place of birth

In early April, the radio station K-Rock was ordered by Advertising Standards Canada to take down its billboards. The billboards in question depicted three nude men with digitally inflated walnuts concealing their groins and the caption "See… they’re nuts!" Complaints registered at St. Albert city hall were escalated to the ASC, resulting in the order. On the subject, St. Albert mayor Richard Plain is quoted with the enigmatic remark, "No one is against advertising goods and services but it's how it's done." The irony is that the billboards were forced down during the week that they had been scheduled to be taken down.

Plain has also been quoted saying that the order "may help establish a standard for Pattison and the company that puts these [billboards] together ..." This is even more ironic because the billboard now in the place of the K-Rock billboard is a parody of that advertisement, showing a photo of two dogs and a cat with the caption "See… no nuts!" The billboard advertises the Tudor Glen Veterinary clinic and encourages motorists to spay or neuter their pets. Clearly the company running these billboards did not get the message that they need to establish a certain standard.

The irony contuinues. Mayor Plain is said to have written the ASC saying many St. Albert residents were offended by the billboard. Now, in place of the billboard that offended denizens of this morally righteous city, there is an equally offensive billboard, put there by a business which resides inside this bastion of morality we call St. Albert. If St. Albert is polite and pure, why is a St. Albert business following the lead of a foul and crude business from outside this moral city, and putting up its own crude billboard? How can St. Albert residents say, as Mayor Plain states, "that they feel it hurts the family values of the community," when a business in that very community is straying from those "values"?

The explanation lies in the reaction of alderman James Burrows to the fiasco: "It's not even on the political radar map." He said he received no complaints about the billboard, and that the billboards were quite humorous. This miniscule little controversy is just a demonstration of the "squeaky wheel gets the oil" phenomenon, and of media illiteracy.

It has long been a tradition in St. Albert for crowds of people to follow one or two individuals who are having a boring week and have thus picked out something to cause a fuss about. People fuss about aggressive dancing at heavy metal concerts while their hockey player sons bully the class honour student, they pat themselves on the back for being anti-racist then spout homophobic hate talk, now they've accused an Edmonton business and one of their own is guilty of the same crime.

Ald. Burrows feared that the fuss over the billboard will add fuel to St. Albert's reputation of being prudish, saying "There is this certain image that Edmontonians have of St. Albert." That "certain image" is that St. Albert residents are mean, self-righteous, and hypocritical. Now no one need wonder why St. Albert has garnered that reputation.

Leaving aside these two billboards, let us consider innumerable other billboards and television ads St. Albert is privy to. I feel that the eerie similarity between the looks of Britney Spears and the average St. Albert eleven-year-old girl are reason enough to forget one-or-two goofy distasteful jokes and look at the menace posed by how advertising/pop culture is affecting children. Is it not, in the words of The Simpsons' Maude Flanders, "all about the children"?

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