In case you were living under a rock last week, you might not have heard of Benneton’s new ad campaign, Unhate. In this campaign there were pictures of perceived political enemies kissing each other. Merkel/Sarkozy (although Germany and France seem to be fast friends since the healing after World War II), Obama/ Chavez and of course the Pope/Egyptian Imam.
There were others, too, but of course the only political entity that threatened a lawsuit was the Vatican. Benneton responded by pulling the ad with the Pope/Imam kiss. I think this response was adequate on Benneton’s part. Indeed, if the Vatican proceeds to sue I think it is showing itself to hate more than Christian texts might like. And thus was more in need of the ad to see itself accurately.
The Vatican sees itself and the whole Catholic Church as a positive thing. Various priest scandals should have taken the blinders off by now, and that church should have realized that unsettling things have been done under its name.
Indeed, I must say that if they proceed in legal action against Benneton despite the ad being pulled, I will make a picture of a nonspecific priest kissing another nonspecific priest. Indeed I might up the priest propaganda all the way up to a priest kissing Hitler on the mouth.
I know I’ve become desensitized to kissing scenes partly due to Saturday Night Live’s Vogelcheck skits. These skits feature a family coming together on Thanksgiving and grossly kissing each other for greetings, shocking the new lover of one Vogelcheck. In short, if the public can laugh at this, I don’t think same sex kissing is as taboo in public as it once was. Change is coming and as usual, religious groups are behind.
More religious hate could be brought into the open with more of this. Wouldn’t it be fun to have a picture of Warren Jeffs kissing Osama bin Laden? What’s wrong with fundamentalist love?
Indeed I think the Unhate campaign didn’t go far enough. What about unhate for sports rivals? Kobe kissing Lebron, Sid the Kid kissing Ovechkin, it could go on and on.
What about celebrities kissing celebrities? Trump kissing Rosie. Unfortunately this would be worse on Rosie since she’s gay.
How about CEO’s kissing CEO’s? Martha Stewart could kiss one of the Olsen twins. I’m sorry that my “off the top of my head” example is once again celebrities. I guess its just that I don’t usually look up to CEO’s. Then again, how about Jim Balsilie (RIM) kissing Steve Jobs? Excuse me if I don’t have a clue who is running Apple right now.
So Benneton could extend their Unhate campaign, like the older United Colours one, much further. I just hope they remain Unevil. After all if they went too far, it would be so easy to photoshop their top executives into kissing rivals or enemies.
