When I was a nipper, Southend was a popular holiday spot for east Londoners.
Pubs, fish & chips, candy floss, funfairs, paddling in the Thames and, if you were lucky, even a bit of sun.
And something that was everywhere was saucy postcards, every gift shop and newsagent had racks of them.
They were simple, colourful cartoons with a cheeky (usually sexual) pun.
Part of a tradition of working-class humour, from the music halls to Benny Hill and Carry On films.
People would send them back home to friends and relatives to show they were letting their hair down and having a good time.
The main artist who drew these postcards was Donald McGill.
Over the years, he did 9,000 different cartoons which sold around 200 million cards to the working class.
But someone decided they offended public decency.
The sort of person who wouldn’t go to Southend, decided the working class shouldn’t be allowed to send rude postcards.
In 1954, Donald McGill was charged under the Obscene Publications Act 1857, he was found guilty and fined.
George Orwell was one of the main supporters of Donald McGill.
He felt those who wanted the cards banned were themselves guilty of two errors.
First, they were infringing other people’s freedom. Second, they didn’t understand humour.
The freedom part is obvious, but the part about humour is interesting.
Orwell points out the main subjects of the postcards are: sex, drunkenness, toilet humour, snobbery, the mother-in-law, hen-pecked husbands, clergymen, and “an endless succession of fat women in tight bathing-dresses.”
Orwell said the basis of all humour was a small rebellion, it was stepping over the boundary of what was allowed, in this case good taste.
He compared it to the Don Quixote – Sancho Panza relationship, the conflict between high-minded respectability and vulgar buffoonery.
He wrote: “Society has always demanded more from human beings than it will get in practice – that they should work hard, pay their taxes, be faithful to their wives, men should think it glorious to die on the battlefield and women should want to wear themselves out with child bearing. Such postcards are therefore symptomatically important as a sort of saturnalia, a harmless rebellion against virtue.”
Orwell understood humour isn’t reality, it is a release, like a safety valve.
On holiday the working classes are free for two weeks, free of the restrictions of their daily lives, they can laze around, get drunk, and laugh at rude jokes.
That’s what Orwell’s ‘harmless rebellion’ is, that is the purpose of humour.
But the middle class have always had a problem with working class humour.
Most of the people in advertising and marketing are middle class, and so have aspirations beyond working class humour.
But many millions of people in the UK are still working class and, as the last few elections have shown, don’t think the same as the university-educated middle class.
Perhaps that’s why advertising is now less popular than it’s been in decades.
Up until 20 years ago, it was quite common to hear ordinary people say: “the adverts are better than the programmes”.
We don’t hear that now, because the middle class only allow their own taste.
And, like the Obscene Publications Act 1857, they will decide what everyone is or isn’t allowed to see.
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Yes, Dave
How right
20 years ago today, I landed in London
For an advertising guy, what a glorious treat
New posters on the tube every day
(Shame no digital camera to capture them and film,
just too expensive)
New commercials on TV so frequently
10 years ago, I went back
How the mighty had fallen
Posters were often nothing more than announcements
Print ads were so bad I hardly bought a mag
Of course I blame a bean counter for first taking the
soul out the agencies
Then the work
This post made me google Donald McGill and then for some reason, I thought of Giles and his wonderful cartoons – and there went my afternoon!
As a consequence of reading your blogs and video lectures I agree entirely that you have to understand the market you are targeting in all aspects; demographic/behavioural traits, attitude, likes and dislikes etc and sense of humour! if you can win them over and engage with the great leveller . HUMOUR you are almost done! wi I run a restaurant and do a fair amount of social media interaction/ interruption! and at the age of 55 I am trying to hit a younger audience than me so I ASK MY YOUNGER STAFF and my daughters who are in that age bracket for their thoughts to my advertising efforts… absolutely fascinating and humbling/embarrassing to realise on receiving feedback that I am SO NOT IN Touch with the mindset of my target audience and my sense of humour is evidently more KEN Dodd than Joe Lycett…! STAY SAFE Dave
As a consequence of reading your blogs and video lectures I agree entirely that you have to understand the market you are targeting in all aspects; demographic/behavioural traits, attitude, likes and dislikes etc and sense of humour! if you can win them over and engage with the great leveller . HUMOUR then you are almost done! I run a restaurant and do a fair amount of social media interaction/ interruption! and at the age of 55 I am trying to hit a younger audience than me so I ASK MY YOUNGER STAFF and my daughters who are in that age bracket for their thoughts to my advertising efforts… absolutely fascinating and humbling/embarrassing to realise on receiving feedback that I am invariably SO NOT IN Touch with the mindset of my target audience and my sense of humour is evidently more KEN Dodd than Joe Lycett…! STAY SAFE Dave
Same reasons why the council knocked down Rachel Whiteread’s Home? ( together with Jeremy Deller’s We’re here because, the very best works of art in my lifetime)
Hi Dave
It was my privilege to attend the “Advertising Workshops” hosted by some London Agencies for students of Ealing (and Watford Collge for Copywriters) in the late 70’s. You, and BMP at the time, as well as Derrick Hass,david Abbott and Jeremy Sinclair, were some of the most influential peolpe in my career, which later spanned JWT, Leo Burnett and other smaller agencies in Lisbon, Portugal.
My name will tell you nothing, but I was from the same batch as Ian Ducker, Will Farquhar, Mitch Levy and others who went on to successful advertising careers and remains friends to this day.
Some time ago, I found your articles in Campaign online and since then, read them avidly. I have also used some excerts as texts for English in courses I run locally, as they are fantastic illustrations of thinking far transcending their eventual advertising context… Is still is a privilege, Sir!