Sony pulls "Jesus" advert for PlayStation

Sony repents after blasphemy claim. It didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition. (Perhaps a little intelligent design on the advert would have helped)

10.04.05 - Reuters is reporting that full-page ads celebrating the PlayStation's 10th anniversary recently run in Italy's newspapers and magazines caused quite the stir with the church. SONY HAS repented after being attacked by Catholics for running an advertisement for Playstation that had a light hearted reference to Jesus Christ.

Sony paid millions of pounds for Italian newspaper, TV and billboard space to celebrate a decade of its games console. The ads featured a man wearing a crown of thorns twisted into a logo and the slogan "PlayStation - 10 years of passion". This reworking of the sacred image caused a flood of complaints. Vatican official Cardinal Ersilio Tonini said: "You cannot adapt the Passion of Christ for an advert for a video game."

Anyone who followed the saga Monty Python’s Life of Brian will know that some Christians don’t appreciate such references, so Sony should have known better.

Sony spinsters in Italy expressed regret over the reaction to the advert. It confessed the "spirit of the message was misunderstood", however it has pulled the advert. We assumed that senior representatives have donned sackcloth and ashes and are beating themselves rigorously as we speak.

Catholics were outraged by the adverts, which ran in newspapers and magazines to celebrate the product's tenth anniversary.

"This time they've gone too far," said Antonio Sciortino, editor of Famiglia Cristiana (Christian Family), a mass-circulation Catholic weekly.

"If this had concerned Islam there would have been a really strong reaction," Sciortino was quoted as saying in the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

Sony's ad is not the first to irk Catholics in recent months.

"There's no religion any more," read a slogan for IKEA in an advert to inform Italians, whose Church attendance is steadily falling, that its furniture stores were open on a Sunday.

Antonio Sciortino, editor of Famiglia Cristiana, a mass-circulation Catholic weekly pointed out that if Christians acted like Moslems then there would have been a ‘strong reaction’ against the ads.

There is nothing like an Islamic stereotype to enforce your case. Jesus is an important part of Islam too and there does not have been any fatwas against Playstations issued.

I guess intelligent design should have been part of Sony's advert then perhaps it would not have had to been withdrawn.