Posts Tagged ‘Discussion’

During tonight’s episode of The Gruen Transfer host Wil Anderson said that they were unable to air one of the ads they had hoped to air due to the ABC not giving them the green light.

Each week Gruen gives a challenge to an ad agency as part of a segment they call “The Pitch”, where they have to take something that is unusual or unpalatable and make it appealing via TV advertisement.
“The Pitch” for this episode was for ad agencies to come up with ads to “End Shape Discrimination” – which is to say end the stigma associated with being overweight.

One of the ads went to air and Wil directed interested people to a special website if they wanted to see the ad that they weren’t able to air, along with a 15 minute panel discussion on the issues the ad addresses.

It’s not, strictly speaking, Biggest Loser related, but as it deals with some associated issues I thought it might be of interest to anyone still reading this dinky little blog.

Before I provide you with the link I will warn you that the advertisement could be considered offensive. It contains a couple of jokes that are clearly discriminatory in nature and, well, quite repugnant in a sense.
But it is for a good cause and highlights an interesting dichotomy, where nobody much thinks of telling jokes about fat people when they’d hesitate to tell a joke about black people.

Now, if you promise not to come back crying to me the URL for the website is www.antiprejudicead.net

Do you think the ad agency went too far? Did it make you reconsider your own prejudices? I know I have some weighty thoughts rolling around in my head right now.

There’s been a bit of a kerfuffle related to the US version of the show, unlike ours which is totally kerfuffle free…

Apparently as one of the puff pieces they do about how awesomely fit contestants end up becoming they had a camera crew on hand to film a contestant running a marathon.

Only that isn’t exactly what happened, according to a variety of people who were actually there.

According to David Kleeman, a read of the blog at TV Barn:

I’m also big into the marathoning community and knew back in January that one of the members of the Black team (either Blaine or Dane) had attempted a marathon in Arizona, but did not complete it. Instead, he had been picked up by a van along the course and dropped back down somewhere prior to the finish and then he crossed the finish line and collected a medal a la Rosie Ruiz.

Apparently when the show aired that segment it made the claim that Dane had finished the entirety of the marathon and included footage of him crossing the finish line and receiving his medal and so on.

In actuality he was disqualified when the deception was discovered and thus is not on the list of runners to have finished the race.

The producers have since fessed up… kinda. They’re blaming unspecified parties for not telling them that the story they told them to go out and shoot was not exactly what they went out and shot.

In a more recent blog update Dane is quoted claiming to have gone back and run the missing 3 miles later in the day, alongside the producer’s apology.

It would seem that a contestant completing a marathon – even if it was a bit slow – would be achievement enough. But apparently not a good enough story for the producers of the show.

Just another reminder to be a little skeptical when it comes to what you see on TV… or the internet!