'We can shoot your wife and frame your mother-in-law'

It's just a jokey advertisement from a picture-framing business but a sense of humour seems to be a rare thing these days

It was intended to be a light-hearted joke about marriage and mothers-in-law.  But an Australian picture frame service's slogan stating 'We can shoot your wife and frame your mother-in-law. If you want we can hang them too' has been banned.

The Advertising Standards Bureau ruled that Fantastic Framing's advert was 'not funny' and breached standards because of the way it portrayed violence.

A number of complaints were made about the Sydney-based service by people who found the advert 'sexist and violent'.

But Fantastic Framing said they were 'surprised' about the backlash because so many of their customers had said it was 'funny' and 'smart'. 'We are very surprised to get this email but more than happy to help and explain it,' the service said, according to documents.

'The reaction we get from our customers that it is very funny and it is relating to marriage and picture frames. Lots of people came to us and said 'Funny we like it ... very smart.

'There is no bad intention for this advertising it is purely a joke which relate to marriage and picture frames.'

The advertising bureau noted that the slogan was 'clearly intended to be a humorous play on words'.

But it found that the 'intended humour has worn off' because of the high level of community concern about violence towards women.

'The majority of the Board acknowledged that the advertiser's intent was to inject humour in to their advertising but considered that making a joke about using a gun or hanging a person would not be found funny by most members of the community,' the ruling stated.

Comedian Austen Tayshus told the Daily Telegraph that it was political correctness gone mad.

'Whenever you use irony, satire, anything like that, you always depend on whether people have the capacity to understand that. Unfortunately people are stupid,' he said.

SOURCE