The Advertising Standards Board of Australia (ASB) has rejected complaints that an advertisement for lamb is offensive to white males. Several complaints were lodged about the ad which producers say attempts to be all-inclusive with the people it features.
Produced by Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA), the ad titled “You Never Lamb Alone” features a white TV presenter quickly being switched with a Bengali-Australian actor Arka Das who introduces a range of ethnicities and sexual orientations as he moves towards a barbeque cooking lamb - “the meat that doesn’t discriminate”.
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Most of the complaints to the Advertising Standards Board of Australia centered on the opening switch of white TV presenter Luke Jacobz to Das, after Jacobz utters the line “I’m here to address concerns that too many perky white males are contributing to the lack of diversity on our screens.”
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“This advertisement clearly states ‘too many WHITE people’ in its commercial which is highly offensive,” one complaint read, according to Bandt. “Pointing out someone’s race and gender in an advertisement and then denigrating such race or gender is both racist and sexist,” another read.
MLA explained that the line was “simply a nod to the common criticism that Australian television lacks diversity,” with the ASB rejecting the complaints on similar grounds.
“The Board considered that the advertisement did not portray or depict material in a way which discriminates against or vilifies a person or section of the community on account of race or gender,” they said.
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