Monday, October 12, 2009

Those Dumb Americans!

Gavin: Our Tivo is in Massachusetts, so we've been exposed to lots of Australian TV ads since we've been here.

It's interesting; there are lots of American shows of all sorts (CSI, Glee, So You Think You Can Dance, etc.), but all of the ads are 100% Australian, even if they're advertising US companies like Pizza Hut, McDonald's or Ford.

People worry that giant international mega-corporations are destroying local culture, but it seems to me that the mega-corporations bend over backwards to fit in.

For example, the aussie word for McDonald's is "maccas" (pronounced "mack-ahs"). I woulda thunk that the McDonald's corporation would be protective of their brand name, but no! Some of their ads begin with "come on in to maccas!"

There's a whole sub-genre of "stupid American" advertisements. For example, there's an ad for KFC that goes something like this:
Scene: family eating outside at a park.
Closeup: dad biting into a chicken burger
Cut to: American tourists (overweight, in Bermuda shorts, holding a camera)
American tourist: Excuse me, could you take our picture?
Australian dad: Sorry mate, I don't speak English.
American tourist: Oh, sorry (wanders off).
I especially like the ad that has some Americans trying to sell the entire island of New Zealand as a vacation spot to some aussies; makes fun of BOTH Americans and New Zealand!

2 comments:

  1. I have a question....how are minorities treated and/or protrayed in Austraila. I know there was the recent incident there on the game show...where a group of guys decided to do Michael Jackson in Black face...and Harry Connick Jr was a judge. Are there any shows on TV with minorites on them.

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  2. The black face skit was awful. I wish that more Australians could understand that it is insensitive and harmful to mock racial groups.

    In short, I think that there should be many many more minorities on Australian television.

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