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![]() A Benetton ad in Paris featuring a doctored photo of the pope kissing a prominent imam.
November 16th, 2011
04:27 PM ET
Benetton pulls ad featuring doctored photo of pope kissing imamBy Dan Gilgoff, CNN.com Religion Editor (CNN) - United Colors of Benetton announced Wednesday it is pulling an ad featuring a doctored picture of the pope kissing a male Muslim cleric on the same day the ad was unveiled in response to criticism. The ad featured a fake picture of Pope Benedict XVI kissing Ahmed Mohamed el-Tayeb, imam of the Al-Azhar mosque, a prominent Muslim house of worship in Cairo, Egypt. "We reiterate that the meaning of this campaign is exclusively to combat the culture of hatred in all its forms," Benetton said in a statement on Wednesday. "We are therefore sorry that the use of the image of the pope and the imam has so offended the sentiments of the faithful,” the statement by the fashion apparel company continued. “In corroboration of our intentions, we have decided, with immediate effect, to withdraw this image from every publication." The ad was part of a campaign United Colors of Benetton unveiled Wednesday that features doctored photos of world leaders kissing each other and that aims to combat what the Italian-based company called a “culture of hatred.” The series features fake photos of U.S. President Barack Obama kissing Chinese leader Hu Jintao and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu kissing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, among other pairings. The ads are appearing in print and online media around the world. “The central theme is the kiss, the most universal symbol of love, between world political and religious leaders,” Benetton said in a Wednesday press release. “These are symbolic images of reconciliation - with a touch of ironic hope and constructive provocation - to stimulate reflection on how politics, faith and ideas, even when they are divergent and mutually opposed, must still lead to dialogue and mediation.” Benetton says the ad campaign accompanies the creation of a new organization called the UNHATE foundation. |
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team. |
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there is a reason why BENETTON is called "united colors of bandes des cons"..get it? lol...only they, can pull such stupid pictures...lolz
This is really tasteless. I don't see how this promotes tolerance or diminishes hate, but I guess they have a very narrow view of who is deserving of protection from hate.
Yeah. Because the pope represents all things "moral". What a joke! cough! cough! sheltered!
Sigh.....and to think we could have had an interesting ad.
Yeah, this is soooo hateful.
Why don't you just go to church and pray for Benetton. Then it is all forgiven, right. Please open your mind and get a grip. It is creative.
Have these people sunk so low on the moral compass that this kind of ad is now even considered normal? I wonder what filth will be aired next time by these degenerates.
Completely agree. And the sad part is, once you reference this being immoral and incomprehensible, out come all the atheists to verbally assault you for being a "bigot." Our society loves everything immoral and will attack you when you point out morality. They are hypocrites to the utmost degree.
@Reality,
Whats does his commnets have to do with "atheism" ....let me think NOTHING...Dude your a troll: Paint a sign (put a picture of jesus if it make you feel better) and write "I'm aTroll"...loser!
Well then, Mr. REALITY, let's acknowledge the reality of the all the current cases of pedophilia and child abuse the pope has been responsible for covering up for years. Disgusting.
Ditto
Isa 6:8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
Isa 6:9 And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.
Isa 6:10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.
Isa 6:11 Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate,
@the sent:
In the world of blind men, the one-eyed man shall be king! Oneday the world will awake and find religion for what is truly is: Fantasy.....
So what if it is or is not "normal"? Since when do things have to be "normal?" I suppose you think that there should be "a single purpose, a single norm, a single morality," etc.? Furthermore, I suppose you think that it's not enough that we have a norm, but that "we conform to that norm!" Normal's overrated. Who are you or anyone else to say what is beautiful and what is ugly... (if any of this sounds like a quotation from a Twilight Zone episode, it's because it is...) Sure this may be in bad taste... but it's also funny as all-get-out. Pope's throughout history have been like the Wizard of Oz, hoping people will not pay any attention to the man blowing the alter boy(s) behind that curtain. As for Imam's, well I can't imagine they're much different, after all, they're human, yes?
thesent...you quote words written by man. congrats.
How is this immoral, fuzzy?
Only the photo is fake. Everything else is real. Just ask the children.
This is really very unproper thing to be showed on the first page of CNN!! if there is problems with some popes the Imam is not like that....it is very sad when there is no values to rule our lives and just anything goes.
To Yahia: That is called freedom you communist. Would you like to tell everyone what they can say, think or fell. If you do not like it, no one is forcing you to read the article.
Yahia, you missed the point. Let me spell it out for you: P E D O P H I L I A. Get it now?
i have values on which to base my life. they just don't necessarily jibe with the proclamations of bronze age sheepherders
Nice one, Rick! As for me, I prefer the tablets from Silicon Valley or a South Korean warehouse over some stone tablets from a mountain.
ROFLMAO!!! omg, this is too funny!!!! I LOVE IT!!!!!
You just sick! have no values and no respect to any one....if Pope is like that the Imam is not.
You guys just never mind anything!! you don't have values and measures to know right from wrong?
@Yahia:
Would you feel better if the Pope was kissing Mohammad, I know I would.....Just hope the Pospe uses tongues........
Yahia... the point is disrespect and you have already moved to segregation.... you may not like the Pope and all he stands for, that does not justify your sentence... however you have just committed the offense as the painter.....disregard for men of honor....
Yahia: You claim to know that values of people you have never met. Nothing pompous about that, eh?
If your company is losing money and relevance, do something outrageous to gain publicity. Yeah, that's the ticket.
If you can show dis res pect to the po pe and other world leaders, why not show dis res pect to your own mothers. Show a photo of the mothers of the company's CEO and VPs, kis sing each other.
I don't know why anyone would *want* to see that, but ok. I wouldn't have a problem with that.
Love infidel humor lol!! The muslim cleric has now tasted young boys
Just silly
As little use as I have for the Pope, using a public figure in an advertisement is improper.
I can't beleive it!! there is still people who can tell good from bad and what can be said or done or not! there is still hope.
Aren't public figures used in advertismements often?
All the people who are offended by this are being ridiculous. It's a doctored image of two men kissing.
I like it!
You're exactly what's wrong with our world today.
You're exactly what's wrong with our world today.
Mmm, no, Christianity and Islam (and Judaism and Hinduism) are huge parts of what's sick and wrong with our world.
Thank god they're finally going the way of every other mythology mankind has dreamt up.
Right to the point, warmesTghost! Today's religion is tomorrow's myth..
The Catholics will now boycott Benetton and the Muslims will bomb a Benetton retail store. I love the ad and it should've stayed up. Maybe A Republican kissing Bin Ladin would've been clever as well
You love it!! is it making you feel complete? you are just sick people not knowing right from wrong and have no respect for anything in life....Yes sure there will be many many people very angry with this ruthless filth.
"Ruthless filth"
I love it. Compared to all the real filth that organized religion has spewed across the pages of history, this is just an amusing joke.
Of course if you're that offended you could always go fly a plane into a building or bomb an abortion clinic. You guys are into that stuff.
Wow, I did not know that the Nazi Pope had such strong feeling for older men, it is usually little boys. He should be sharing a cell with Sandusky!
I am glad they included an Imam but I wish they would have put Mohammad in there instead. That's not helping tolerance, that picture will just fuel anger towards the Gay community, that's why they took it down. It would be great if they or someone else were to publish their own faces, then they would know what hate really is- instead of someone innocent being a victim of the anger that this picture produces.
Who is innocent in that picture? They are both crooks!
When I said "innocent" I didn't mean the people in the picture. I meant when some radical sees the picture, gets angry and lashes out. The Pope and the Imam are protected, but it will be the janitor or security guard or other employee(s) who get hurt, maybe killed.If I was working there, I would find another job.
I gotcha! That is a valid point.
Why? There are so cute like kittens 🙂
yeah man its true hahahaaaaaahahaaaa u've made ma day
REALLY BENNETON???!!! Who in your corporate family thought this was tasteful???? OMG!! Is your company run by a bunch of 20 year olds with no business sense?!!
It's frontpage on a WHOLE LOT of news outlets. And the only thing distasteful here is the taste of children in the Muslim clerics mouth now. Ummm you're not very merketing saavy
I want to know why my post keeps getting censored. There are no words in the them that an automated system would reject.
Be honest and show yourself if you can't accept what i have to say.
Sorry. Post it again I won't block it this time.
@JW
Just let her post what she wants to! This is a free country right?! I mean I know you want to show off your fast reading skillz and being able to catch naughty words within words (like consTI.Tution) and for some reason you're totally good with letting others like myself get away with it if we toss in a period, but just let Kay post what she wants to post, PLEASE!
It should be going through now, unless I am involuntarily blocking posts now. Maybe now it is just a reflex.
It really is strange that two of my posts were blocked given the words that are in some posts and the insults that are in others.
I don't get why two of my posts were blocked given the words that are in some posts and the insults that are in others.
the usual offenders are probably either ti.t, cu.m and va.g, I'm not sure if you're already aware but just go through them again and if there's a word like say, ti.tle.... your post will get blocked. Same for docu.ment or va.gue... ya dig?
Chuckles, the content of those two posts were commentaries on the offensive nature of various actions of the Catholic church. There were no "bad" words, only honest ones.
Oh well. Not being able to say it here won't stop me from spreading the word anyway.
I think the ones that get me are ar.se as in ar.senic, or ja.p and in ja.panese
Kay
You're still not getting it, you can generally post whatever the hell you want on these boards, just put a period, space or dash wherever you have bad words. There's person actually reading your posts at lightspeed and making a decision to accept or reject it, it's a bot that only has a small list of words to automatically reject no matter how benign the content is.
Kay... some of the word fragments are tricky...
Bad letter combinations / words to avoid if you want to get past the CNN automatic filter:
Many, if not most, are buried within other words, so use your imagination.
You can use dashes, spaces, or other characters to modify the "offending" letter combinations.
---
ar-se.....as in ar-senic.
co-ck.....as in co-ckatiel, co-ckatrice, co-ckleshell, co-ckles, etc.
co-on.....as in rac-oon, coc-oon, etc.
cu-m......as in doc-ument, accu-mulate, circu-mnavigate, circu-mstances, cu-mbersome, cuc-umber, etc.
cu-nt.....as in Scu-ntthorpe, a city in the UK famous for having problems with filters...!
ef-fing...as in ef-fing filter
ft-w......as in soft-ware, delft-ware, swift-water, drift-wood, etc.
ho-mo.....as in ho-mo sapiens or ho-mose-xual, ho-mogenous, etc.
ho-rny....as in tho-rny, etc.
jacka-ss...yet "ass" is allowed by itself.....
ja-p......as in j-apanese, ja-pan, j-ape, etc.
koo-ch....as in koo-chie koo..!
nip-ple
o-rgy….as in po-rgy, zo-rgy, etc.
pi-s......as in pi-stol, lapi-s, pi-ssed, therapi-st, etc.
p-orn… as in p-ornography
pr-ick....as in pri-ckling, pri-ckles, etc.
que-er
ra-pe.....as in scra-pe, tra-peze, gr-ape, thera-peutic, sara-pe, etc.
se-x......as in Ess-ex, s-exual, etc.
sh-@t.....but shat is okay – don't use the @ symbol there.
sl-ut
sn-atch
sp-ic.....as in disp-icable, hosp-ice, consp-icuous, susp-icious, sp-icule, sp-ice, etc.
sp-oon
sp-ook… as in sp-ooky, sp-ooked
strip-per
ti-t......as in const-itution, att-itude, ent-ities, alt-itude, beat-itude, etc.
tw-at.....as in wristw-atch, nightw-atchman, etc.
va-g......as in extrava-gant, va-gina, va-grant, va-gue, sava-ge, etc.
who-re....as in who're you kidding / don't forget to put in that apostrophe!
wt-f....also!!!!!!!
–
There are more, some of them considered "racist", so do not assume that this list is complete.
Thanks Chuckles and Helpful Hints. I do know that no one actually moderates the boards, but there were no words in my post that could even remotely be considered offensive. Taken as a whole the posts would probably have offended quite a few people, but that's because of my POV, not the individuals words used to express it. That's what has me puzzled.
This just a test..
coochie
Hahaha!
I've been up too long.
Kay, It's possible that you have run across a new glitchy word. Maybe you could try posting it one paragraph at a time or something, so that it can be tracked down.
I think the moderators are confusing you with the other Kay.
Sorry but since the day Obama was sworn in on the Koran and he said this was not a Christian nation, our whole world has become more immoral. Sure we had immoral things going on before, but this has gotten to increase at an astronomical rate. This must be a campaign against what Obama created–HATRED. Obama professes to be a Christian but his Muslim ideas are showing through.
If we allow Muslim ideas to come into our society totally and completely, we will not have freedom of anything. Muslims will not kill if you convert totally and completely to Muslim ways. Atheists or however you believe will not be tolerated. You either convert or die. Obama is trying to cause problems between peoples and nations. It is underhanded way of causing problems of hate.
Tried way too hard.
Troll fail.
How has he created hatred?
OBAMA HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS PICTURE.....................STICK TO THE RELEVANCE OF THE AUTHOR'S INTENT!! Take your Obama hating moronic episode and post somewhere else.
Simple Googling would tell you that your fearmongering comment about Obama being sworn in on the Quran is not true: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Was_Barack_Obama_sworn_into_office_with_a_Qur'an
And even if it was, so long as someone does their job properly, why does their religion matter whatsoever?
You're a bloody idiot. You're probably some christian fundy, following Fox news. Obama goes to Catholic mass, you asshat. Immoral? You're got kills by the millions and you think 4 years with a democratic black president makes this country immoral? Do everyone a favor, kill yourself.
@petemg,
"since the day Obama was sworn in on the Koran"
That did not happen.
I read your first sentence and thought to myself " IDIOT REPUBLIKKKAN"
really: "You're a bloody idiot. You're probably some christian fundy, following Fox news"
You're a bloody idiot. You're probably a mouth breathing liberal, having no intelligence whatsoever.
Why do we know this? Because you can't spot even the most obvious troll.
Good job 🙂
yes i agrree its all obamas fault!! everything hes the reason why this world is falling to pieces!!!!! its all HIS FAULT ALL OBAMAS FAULT OBAMA!!!!!! OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
petemg: Your a troll, in fact lets hope you are not capable of breeding. Does your parole officer know your on his computer again.....what a loser.......
+1 to Nah for recognizing that guy was a troll.
The rest of you idiots have no intelligence whatsoever. Sad that this is what you choose to attack and try to pin conservatives or republicans on this, it's clearly a far left troll trying to stir up the pot.
Libtards at their finest.
Wow - what are you taking for your paranoia?
Well believe it or not, there are many people who still do think this. So how can you tell this particular person is just a troll and not one of the many people who would agree with what he said?
@JW – Bc I can use common sense. I can also read a comment, look at its context and intent, and then using deduction that a basic ape has, it's fairly obvious that it's a troll posting to get reactions.
Try to think about things in depth for once, I know you liberals don't like to, but just occupying spaces (OWS) and spouting non sensical rhetoric is the way of a fool.
reality: "The rest of you idiots have no intelligence whatsoever. Sad that this is what you choose to attack and try to pin conservatives or republicans on this, it's clearly a far left troll trying to stir up the pot."
Thank you, thank you 🙂
Goodness me!
I did not know Benetton was still in business
You should try traveling abroad more often.
What, is the Ahmed Mohamed el-Tayeb too old for the Pope?
No. The pope just went: "Come here and let me taste that little boy, too."
NEW WORLD ORDER.... Obama Kissed Chinese President. Everyone who is in secret meeting G20. They kissed. Even North Korean Kim was there. They know something about 2012 and collapse of economy.
They said "GOOD BYE".
I thought he was kissing Tom Donohue. You know that photo exists.
Congratulations to the Pope. At least it wasn't a child for a change.
Very well said Jack xD.
I get your point about the Catholic church and their priests who've been dishonorable and down right disgusting, but, why must you attack the pope? Was he charged with child molestation? I don't hate people like you, but, I do hate your ugliness and stupidity.
Joseph Ratzinger is a disgusting human being directly responsible for lying to millions of Africans about the efficacy of condoms in the battle against AIDS, the head of a distinctly misogynistic cult of geriatric pederasts, and as a bishop reaffirmed the sanct-ity of the church's doctrine not to disclose incidences of clergical abuse against young children.
Anyone sticking up for this man is either stupid, insane or hopelessly brainwashed.
Exactly my point with my other comment. Thanks, Jack!