A new commercial for Panda Cab is getting some heat (and
some cheers as well) for doing a send-up of the Royal family. It basically
makes them look silly, and mostly makes fun of them all around. From what I’ve
read, plenty of people are expressing outrage or at least wagging their fingers
for poor taste here, but I really think the commercial is just skewering the
Royals for fun, and because they are so well-known. (Although I wouldn’t make
that ad for a cab service in London; but then again, it’s not my cab company.) And
after the Opium Wars and colonization, who can blame the Chinese for wanting to
jab at the Brits for a snide chuckle once in a while? (I think some of it is perhaps a bit below the belt, but I really do think it’s meant as a parody.)
But if the Brits want to
get some ad hominem revenge for this spot, they could make a retort ad for Panda
Cab that shows some Chinese Communist Party officials trying to flag a cab in
Tiananmen Square in 1989, and they get run over by a tank or shot by their own
troops instead. (Zing!) And then the
ad could say: “If only there had been Panda Cabs there in 1989: Then those
party officials could have safely oppressed their people at a distance!”
(<Now that’s real poor taste!)
Here’s the sovereign-skewering spot:
BTW: I think many people very much like the British Royals, especially Queen Elizabeth II and Kate Middleton. Full disclosure: I like them too (although not in a TMZesque way). I think they're wonderful ambassadors for England and the Commonwealth, and despite the charges of extravagance, Queen Elizabeth has spent most of her time flying all over the world for meetings and such, which can’t be so easy at her age, especially with all the time zones & jet lag and so forth. (But at least it gets her away from that English food! Maybe that’s why she really does it!)
Also, I’m not sure if this ad is intended for the Brit audience, or just for China. I'm not clear on this. If they’re trying to lure the English, then I would have to say it’s probably not going to work very well. They just had a huge jubilee for Queen Elizabeth, and everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy it. So I'd think that insulting the Royals might not be the best idea for an ad just now. But it might work well for the Chinese audience: who knows? And you have to figure that every bit of entertainment and/or advertising that comes out of China has got to be soaked through with anti-counter-revolutionary propaganda. Almost all of their movies seem to be soaked through with how corrupt the Chinese government was before the Communist revolution, and how greedy and immoral all foreign governments are (although, to be fair, China has very valid historical reasons for not trusting foreign governments).
Also, I’m not sure if this ad is intended for the Brit audience, or just for China. I'm not clear on this. If they’re trying to lure the English, then I would have to say it’s probably not going to work very well. They just had a huge jubilee for Queen Elizabeth, and everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy it. So I'd think that insulting the Royals might not be the best idea for an ad just now. But it might work well for the Chinese audience: who knows? And you have to figure that every bit of entertainment and/or advertising that comes out of China has got to be soaked through with anti-counter-revolutionary propaganda. Almost all of their movies seem to be soaked through with how corrupt the Chinese government was before the Communist revolution, and how greedy and immoral all foreign governments are (although, to be fair, China has very valid historical reasons for not trusting foreign governments).
