A Guardian report shows the efforts that Channel 4 went to achieve the stereotypical and sensationalised images used in the advertising campaign recently criticised by the Advertising Standards Authority.
A Channel 4 art director tried to persuade the photographer working on its censured Big Fat Gypsy Weddings poster campaign to take pictures of “a very young girl pretending to be a bride” and also a “dirty kiss … with tongue” in a revealing email.
Pablo Gonzalez de la Pena, an art director with the broadcaster, emailed Elisabeth Blanchet, the photographer commissioned to deliver images for the controversial “Bigger. Fatter. Gypsier” ad campaign, in January asking her to “do what it takes” to get the controversial shots he wanted.
In the email de la Pena suggests he wants to see a photograph with “a dirty kiss between a couple, with tongue”; “a toilet, ideally an outdoor one [where] we can see the tail of a wedding dress coming out from it, like a bride has just used”; and “a very young girl pretending to be a bride”.
The photographer, who refused to cooperate, gives her side of the story with powerful examples of how the selection and choice of images and cropping exaggerated Channel 4s racist perceptions.
