David Darmanin Amid the controversy surrounding the plight to end government’s archaic censorship laws, Ray de Bono, art director with a branding and IT company, told MaltaToday that over the past 10 years, opposition to “harmless” advertising campaigns he created has cost his firm thousands of euros.
The most debated case was perhaps the infamous Gallerija Darmanin TV advert in 1999, which featured a barefoot tango, with a woman falling halfway through the dance. Because a feminist interpreted the advert as derogatory to women, the clip was banned by the Broadcasting Authority.
The clients, Darval Ltd, vehemently denied any intention to offend women – which made up the largest portion of their clientele – saying that that would be senseless on their part. Both de Bono and the Darmanins had filed a judicial protest to have the BA ban rescinded, but to no avail.
There was not a single feminist organisation in Malta at the time, so the move was deemed by the injured parties as a ploy from hostile competitors to put spokes in the wheels.
In his show on One TV, priest and talk-show host Fr Colin Apap challenged the authority by airing the advert anyway, only for the BA to then threaten the TV station that it could lose it license to broadcast.
Over the years, de Bono kept insisting with the BA to have the ban lifted, as he keeps hoping that in “today’s context, I am quite sure that the advert will be looked at differently.”
The advert may be viewed on internet by visiting: http://www.dmax.tv/works/videos/tv_gallarija.htm
Elsewhere, an advertising campaign for clothes brand Mexx was stopped prior to being published because of “what was interpreted as containing nudity, which was not the case at all.”
The local newspaper that had refused publication of the said advert some nine years ago has recently informed de Bono that it would find no problem publishing it today. This, he confided to MaltaToday, was “a very positive sign of changing times.”
Another heated issue concerned a protest by a particular school’s Parents and Teachers Association for airing a radio advert on behalf of a toy shop, wherein a child is heard saying how much she hated school, no matter what her mother thought.
The advert was dubbed “disgusting” by the PTA, claiming that it intended to turn children against their parents and teachers. In a letter published in the local media, an unnamed member of this PTA had added to mention that the entire committee was also unanimously opposed to what they called “his previous anti-women advert”.
De Bono still thinks of the schoolgirl advert as “sweet”, claiming that he should have been granted the artistic freedom of including the text, seeing that it was ultimately harmless.
Furthermore, a radio advertising campaign promoting a coffee shop that had just opened also came under fire because of the language used. “The campaign featured a series of jokes and puns, coming out in two series entitled ‘why coffee is better than men’ and ‘why coffee is better than women’. But because one of the adverts in the women’s series featured a joke about coffee not being jealous of bigger cups, there was a whole opposition about the campaign.”
Interestingly enough, de Bono recalls how none of the ladies who attacked the campaign – including a number of leading columnists on the English local press who covered this campaign quite extensively – protested against comparable jokes targeting men at the time.
De Bono claims that “mediocrity in local advertising production is prevalent in Malta, not only due to limited budgets, as one would be surprised what can be done, notwithstanding meagre finances. Simplicity, ingenuity and the audacity to be daring is what’s needed most – but if you go down that road you would be inviting bans, boycotts and opposition.”.
Calling for a change in censorship laws, de Bono said that as we stand “the situation is very hypocritical because in other media – including the theatre, cinema and Maltese TV drama productions – you will find more serious cases of scenes portraying violence, promiscuity, smoking, drinking and drug-taking.”
He said that without entering into the merits of whether such scenes are or should be justified, “art has to be true… it must contain a realistic portrayal of society”, insisting that it is unacceptable that non-violent videos such as the tango dance are banned.
Ray de Bono said that by no means should a redesigned censorship law allow a free-for-all viewership of any content.
“We should go for a model adopted by other EU countries, especially the UK and Germany,” he said. “While I am in favour of complete freedom of expression, there have to be rules that curtail underage viewing by age classification and time limits. As an adult, I feel that if I do not want to be exposed to certain content, I simply don’t watch it.”
Ray de Bono today is the art director at Dmax which provides branding and IT development services in Malta, uk and Germany.
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