Scenario: it's Friday night. What are you going to do? The MSG Network has a few options for you.
For instance, "You can either see a Broadway harness malfunctioning or you can watch real men fly."
The company ran a series of ads for the Knicks, and the controversial campaign touched a nerve with a lot of New Yorkers, from women to East Village poets. After plenty of buzz and backlash, MSG promised to take down the posters associated with the campaign, apologizing to anybody offended by the ad and calling it bad judgment.
It's not necessarily a good campaign, but it's not worth the fuss it received.
If you're really aching to overanalyze it, it looks bad. The Broadway ad was referring to the incidents that occurred with the show "Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark." Several actors were injured, including stuntman Christopher Tierney, who sustained four broken ribs and fractured three vertebrae in the show's trial run. And the use of the phrase "real men" for the Knicks has already been construed as homophobic.
This isn't a homophobic issue, though, nor is it sexist (another ad referred to the choice of going out to "pick up sixes or sevens" or staying at home to "watch Kidd dish out dimes") or...anti-poet. It's about political correctness and how we address ourselves. People don't want to laugh at themselves and, of course, don't want to feel like they're receiving any form of criticism. Every group of people will find a way to shield themselves from whatever joke comes their way and, in turn, every group becomes untouchable.
It's hard to believe that a team that has so avidly supported city poets and has even funded the Knicks Poetry Slam program would be so quick to bash the East Village community on the art, nor is it easy to believe that an organization and its parent charity NBA Cares would attack the gay community when it is partnered with the Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network (GLSEN).
It's doubtful there was any bad intention with these advertisements. They're very similar to another ad campaign by Nike in 2008. The company was running poster ads for its new Hyperdunk basketball shoes, which featured a series of basketball players being dunked and their faces being buried in their opponents' crotches and slogans such as, "Say Hello," "Isn't That Cute," and "Punks Jump Up." The ads weren't exactly the most offensive advertisements running that year, but some considered them to be homophobic for whatever reason, so the company pulled the campaign.
The Knicks aren't the only team in New York anymore now that the now-Brooklyn Nets have hauled their stuff into the city. Is anyone surprised the Knicks are working harder and campaigning to get people to their games? The team has started the season off on a good foot, and all of this is coming at a perfect time for the city. In case anyone forgot, there is a lot more out there to get worked up over and a lot more to worry about in New York currently than a couple of questionable poster ads. The last couple of weeks have been about rebuilding the city and rebuilding morale. The ads don't help, but neither does the vehement opposition and premature claims of prejudice.
Email: editorial@ubspectrum.com
