A few comments on the adverts which ran during Make Bradford British and how they both show the context in which we operate and operate to dilute the message of the programme.
Firstly the programme is sponsered by Honda, whose filler ads, showed a very technical process taking place. The idea seems clear: it is the rational world of science based progress which is objective enough to be able to structure this look inside the irrational world of racism
Secondly there was an advert for MoneySupermarket which were so extra-ordinaryly commercial, humourously showing a man winning (saving in fact) money which allows him extatic access to wealth and satisfaction of desire.
Thirdly I saw an advert for India, for an Indian beer. This advert offered us the other, the dark foreigner but one ready for consumption, one ready for conquest, one full of desires already aligned with our own need to conquer. The other as beautifual and willing to be bought.
Fourthly I saw an advert for Holidays at Home in Britian. this was almost like the annoucement of the war the message being (again with the humour needed to give it flavour) whatever you might find ‘over there’ we have got it here already. The Britain that is featured is entirely white, a characature of tea on the lawn old world ethnically simple Britain, no complexity, no class.
These are adverts that subvert the work done by the programme and amount, literally, to the price the programme makers have to pay to see their work aired.