Posten Norge, a Norwegian provider of postal services, published a scandalous advertisement on YouTube. The video shows the story of the Holy Family in a blasphemous way. The creators of the advertisement insinuate that Jesus was allegedly the fruit of a love affair between Mary and a mailman. The authors of the film are perfectly frank that they mean the Biblical figures.
The plot of the ad published on YouTube is set in ancient Palestine. It is about a mailman in the course of his duties who then arrives at Mary and Joseph’s house in Nazareth (Galilee).
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When he arrives the mail is received by Mary and the mailman falls in love with her. Right after that there is a caption reading: “9 months later…” and a picture of the Bethlehem stable. At one moment the camera shows Joseph’s face in close-up and then an embarrassed Mary holding her baby, who distinctly bears the mailman’s features.
At the end is the caption, “Maybe it doesn’t work like before any more but regardless of history, the postal service has always been an important part of Christmas”.
The scandalous advertisement has been met with a wave of criticism. “I have a question for you, who in the name of the freedom of speech makes fun of Christians, would you make a similar video about Muslims? I don’t think so,” someone signed Samuel Z. Samra wrote. “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account,” Zesa Samir responded quoting a fragment of the Gospel according to Matthew. “The advertisement doesn’t respect Christians and their faith. It is absolutely unacceptable to show a lack of respect to the culture and identity of any human being. And for believers their faith and their convictions are just their part,” José Cepeda stated.
“We don’t want to offend anyone,” the Norwegian company asserts. “The purpose of the advertisement is to show that the Norwegian postal service has always been a part of Christmas by using comical means in the well-known history of the birth of Christ. The Gospel of Christ’s birth has been re-written, parodied and adapted for the screen many times in history. Our little contribution is connecting the character who ‘most probably is a mailman’ with the Christmas Gospel. In our opinion the Christmas Gospel is part of the Norwegian Christmas tradition which is a point of departure for our film. Connecting other religions (e.g. Islam) with Christmas is therefore not proper in this case”, we can read in the answer to the avalanche of negative comments.
Pal de Vibe from St. Olaf’s Foundation is calling attention to the advertisement. As he said, in Norway there are few Catholics and Christians in general, so he’s looking for some support also in Poland. His aim is an effective protest against the advertisement.
Source: Posten / YouTube
PR
Transl.: Jan J. Franczak
