Thursday, March 01, 2007




Public Service announcements in the Cedar Homeland. So they are are running these ads on Lebanese TV stations. These ads are running on lebanese tv on how the lebanese postal service (lipos) offers you to renew residency status of your foreigner employees by mail. The ads are in the form of cartoon animation, and the character used to represent the foreign employee is a dark-skinned maid, as seen above. Notice how the maid is sitting on the couch--which would not be permitted in real-life Lebanon; and notice how happy the maid looks as she cooks the meal, which runs counter to actual life experiences in a country where one reads about the suicide of Sri Lankan maids almost weekly. Haytham told me this: "i know the story of a professor at carnegie mellon whos sri lankan (she was the advisor of my friend), who once visited lebanon. and the airport security would not let her through, and they put her in the room with the other maids (where they wait for their employer/master/owner). and since that day, shes never stepping again in lebanon)." My friend Joseph adds that it is noteworthy that the Lebanese woman is depicted as a blond. (thanks Haytham)