Wednesday, September 01, 2010

The Silencing of the Lambs

I reported last week that the Swedish broadcaster TV4 refused to air an election commercial for the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, based on the contention that it was “racist”. To refresh your memory, here is a subtitled version of the commercial in question:


Today’s Jyllands-Posten reports that the commercial was so politically radioactive that no Swedish media company could be found to produce it. Sverigedemokraterna had to reach across the water to Denmark for a production team, but even the Danes were unhappy about collaborating so closely with “racists”.

Many thanks to Kitman for the following abridged translation:

Controversial Swedish film produced in Denmark

“We tried for six months to find a Swedish producer, but nobody wanted to participate, so we had to have it made in Denmark,” says Sverigedemokraterna’s press spokesman, Erik Almqvist.

Apparently even the Danes were afraid that if their participation was known, it could result in severe repercussions and bad publicity throughout the industry.

Sound work on the film was done by the Danish company Supersonic, which now regrets its involvement.
Mitch Fisherman, Managing Director of Supersonic, says they “regret having participated and did not know what we were getting into.”
- - - - - - - - -
Another Danish producer, Strictly Production, participated along with Duckling. Duckling did post-production, but regretted their participation as soon as they discovered the political implications. When they realized what those were, they left the project unfinished and refused to receive any payments.

“It is not our job to take political positions, but if I had known what it was about initially, we would have said no thanks to the job at the beginning,” says Andrew Monk, director of Duckling.

Our Danish correspondent TB refers us to an SR article reporting that a censored version has been made of the ad refused by TV4:

Controversial Ad Gets Go-Ahead

Swedish commercial TV channel TV 4 says it will broadcast a new version of a controversial advert by the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrat party.

The ad had originally featured pensioners being chased by women dressed in burkas pushing baby carriages, but TV4 feared the ads could be seen as anti-muslim, breaking discrimination legislation, and refused to carry them.

The burka-clad women will now be covered by a sign saying “censored by TV4” according to news agency TT, and as the women are no longer visible, it no longer breaks the law, says the TV station.

This is the first election campaign where political advertising has been allowed on Swedish TV.

The censored version may be seen here (Swedish only).

6 comments:

Juniper in the Desert said...

Why not show muslim men in long white nightdresses holding long knives and chasing old ladies? Surely that is closer to home?

OffendedMan said...

So apparently it's not illegal to discriminate in Sweden, it's only illegal to talk about it.

MacD said...

So long Sweden, twas nice knowing you...

Zenster said...

It is especially sad to see stalwart Denmark becoming infected with Sweden's terminal case of Political Correctness.

EscapeVelocity said...

I wonder if some of those folks were/ARE just frightened to have their names associated with the production for fear of Muslim reprisals.

Alternatively, that they are afraid of Leftwing reprisals, economic and professional ostracization.

And not just that they are themselves the ostracizers.

Elan-tima said...

EscapeVelocity's second theory is the real reason the production companies were falling over themselves trying to run as quickly as possible away from the project. Having worked under contract and freelance in the same industry here in left coast Canada I can testify that regardless of the company, the enviornment is polluted from top to bottom with multi-culti red, etc. etc. people. Just the hint of critical opinions of that ideology and your labeled a Nazzee until proven innocent. If you want any work from the Hollywood types or better still the government, you must bath your company in the guano of political corretness.