From the AJN website:
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Why are we not shocked?
No doubt we can look forward to the AJN's authority on all matters related to dreck and the dreckerati, Adam Kamien, to give this muck a rave review.
From another reader:
The same porn advertisement features on the AJN weekly email newsletter.
Clearly this banner advertisement has been effective, as it caught your reader's attention.
ReplyDeleteThe Malthouse Theatre is a highly respected company and their productions are likely to appeal to the AJN audience, hence why they have put their advertisement on the AJN banner.
I think you forget the AJN is a profit-making business that has to be sucessful for its advertisers. I suspect the majority of the AJN readership take no offence at this advertisement, as it contains nothing especially offensive.
If you had taken a moment to check out the Malthouse web site you would also have seen their other productions "A Golem Story" and "Matzoh Balls".
A Golem Story: "On the cobble-stone streets of medieval Prague: dead children, drained of blood, are piling up; an invisible emperor decrees a purging of the ghetto; and a Rabbi works through the dark night to fashion an avenging monster, a creature of absolute and terrifying power."
Matzoh Balls: "Libbi Gore hosts an afternoon of song, wine and women (Lally Katz, Elisa Gray, Deborah Leiser-Moore) - and a boy in men's pants (John Safran) - we discover what defines the Yiddish sensibility… there'll be tears, there'll be laughter, there'll be singing, and lots of chicken soup."
Just by visiting the site now from the catchy and perhaps provocative advertisement I have discovered two other interesting productions.
I think you are being too hasty to judge.
Michael.
I am the anonymous reader, and I was actually shocked, accustomed as I am to the AJN's garbage dished up each week....
ReplyDeleteI don't buy the paper anymore, just check it online occasionally.
They have sunk to even lower depths, which can only mean one thing [as per this shiur]: Secret of the End: Moshiach is just around the corner.
I am actually surprised that the AJn doesn't carry ads for brothels seeing as barnett writes "is a profit-making business that has to be sucessful for its advertisers"
ReplyDeleteYou think all types of Jews don't use brothels?
ReplyDeleteAnd therefore?
ReplyDeleteAll types of non-Jews also use brothels, but you won't see them advertised on the mastheads of the Australian or the Herald Sun
Your brothel argument is hypothetical and not worth wasting time on until either an advertisement for a brothel appears on the masthead or it becomes known that the AJN refused the advertising space to a brothel.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime the paper has published an advert for a theatre company and the imagery and wording in the advert are in the bounds of good taste. If it offends you then perhaps that product is not suitable for you.
You may consider this in 'the bounds of good taste'. But many (or probably most)decent, traditional and normal Jews (and non-Jews) don't.
ReplyDeleteAnd if the AJN has no concerns about offending the feelings of these people then they do not deserve their support either.
Yes, Michael, you may be surprised or shocked to learn that there are many, many families who do not wish to expose their young children to porn and dreck.
And you, etc, may be surprised or shocked to learn that there are many, many readers who do not wish to be exposed to offensive words like "dxxxx".
ReplyDeleteHow about some civility when presenting an argument?
WW is correct. Though sometimes I suppose it is necessary to describe dxxxx as dxxxx
ReplyDeletePrecisely why we cancelled our subscription.
ReplyDeleteWho needs the family exposed to this under the banner of a "Jewish " newspaper?
The AJN is not the moral conscience of it's readership. Ultimately you as the reader will decide not to buy the paper and/or patronise their advertisers. If enough people stop these activities then the paper will get the message. Until such time, the paper has little reason for concern about how much it offends a sector of its readership. It all comes down to economics. It's actually in the paper's best interests to be more controversial and more "offensive". You won't win this one.
ReplyDeleteB'H
ReplyDeleteI am so glad that Michael Barnett does not set the boundaries of good taste in any social sector nor is he a barometer of such for the national norm, thank G-D. Apart from not understanding exactly what boundaries are, Michael is a fringe person with some real issues that would not be proper to air the exact details of here in this public venue.
The Australian Jewish News has been in decline for years. It will either fade altogether and then the secular community will either have to use Hamodia or present their weddings and simchas in the Goyishe papers (Just imagine the Age or Herald Sun having a page or two of melbourne Jewish Events and Happenings in the Saturday Magazine) if they want to keep to their present standards of bad taste mixed with tradition.
I imagine that the only people who buy it are the following: those who are older and want to see who of their friends or enemies have been buried, who is marrying who and if they are marrying a yid or a goy. Did I forget something?
If they are younger, it is who is in the social pages or who is in the sporting pages or in bad taste.
Serious Jewish news or news about Israel, political analysis of world events or other Jewish communities, it is not!
It is extremely vulgar and if its standards continue to decline it may even get an R rating which would excite Barnett who is constantly pushing for everyone to adopt his lack of moral values and good taste.
By his reasoning, if it all comes down to economics, goodness knows what we all might be reduced to.
Michael, sadly this is one you will not win. You should recognise the fact and politely pull your head in. Most family orientated and decent people do not seek to destroy standards but to create and uphold them.