Contextual ads just continue to horrify

What a shame about this ad, placed next to a story about the deadly wildfires in California. It’s for Catch a Fire, Phillip Noyce’s new political thriller. The tagline is, “The spark that ignites us, unites us.” It's a bit late to change the line now, but any punchy one-liner would have been fine, as long as it got across the point that the Tim Robbins vehicle is a how-to for making militants, a primer on radicalization, Rx for people who can’t fathom how nice boys grow up to be, say, al Qaeda recruits. No matter that the movie’s set in South Africa in the apartheid era, its retelling of oil-refinery foreman and soccer coach Patrick Chamusso’s (Derek Luke) call to action is based on a true story that’s still red hot. Thanks to Ben for the image. 

—Posted by Laura Blum

October 27, 2006 | Permalink