OMG! According to the United States Alcohol Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, watching someone drinking a beer in a Japanese Asahi beer commercial may cause alcoholism in the States! Everyone, cover your eyes immediately before you succumb to the power of the almighty television commercial…in a language you can’t even understand…in a commercial you will never see aired in America…because its a friggin Japanese commercial! Why doesn’t the U.S. government just skip all this shit and force us right into the 1984-like world in which they really want us to live?
Overreact much? How about gone entirely insane. The government wants to take legal action against Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka who is seen in the Asahi ad consuming beer, a no-no in the States. While it’s one thing to enforce the U.S. regulation of not showing the actual consumption of alcohol in advertisements, it’s entirely another to foist that law on another country or a person who just happens to now live in the U.S. but made the commercial in another country under an entirely different jurisdiction.
Asserting the government’s position, ATTT Bureau Director of Public and Media Affairs Arthur Resnick cited a 1995 bureau ruling to the Boston Herald which finds unacceptable any ad, “which depicts any individual (famous athlete or otherwise) consuming or about to consume an alcoholic beverage prior to or during an athletic activity or event,” or an ad that infers drinking alcohol “will enhance athletic prowess, performance at athletic activities or events, health or conditioning.” There’s this thing called nation building that some people outside the U.S. don’t like about us and while this insanity isn’t constructing anything here, it sure looks like it’s trying to deconstruct another country’s legal code.
The endorsement deal between Matsuzaka and Asahi was made prior to his signing with the Red Sox. Major League Baseball International approved the spots and the use of the Red Sox logo. An MLB International spokesman said, “We did approve it with him drinking the beer outside of his uniform. It’s a type of commercial that is really commonplace in Japan. It is not really that far fetched.” None of that is good enough for the U. S. government.
It’s official. The U.S. government wants to own the world.
