An ad campaign for a new Amazon series that decked out the subway seats on a New York City shuttle with Nazi insignia reportedly came to a screeching halt after offended straphangers, local politicians and activists complained.
The Daily News reports Amazon asked the Metropolitan Transit Authority to strip the Times Square shuttle seats of the German Iron Eagle and Japanese Rising Sun signage that was painted against American red-white-and-blue.
The ads for the new series,
"Man in the High Castle," is based on a Philip K. Dick novel that imagined the Third Reich and Japanese Empire had won WWII and occupied the United States.
"Not sure which is worse, #Amazon creating Nazi insignia subway seat covers to promote series or #MTA approving them," one Twitter user groused.
Another complained:
MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg tells the News that Amazon decided to pull the ads because of the furor.
"We have no grounds to reject them," Lisberg said. "MTA is a government agency and can’t accept or reject ads based on how we feel about them; we have to follow the standards approved by our board."
But tate Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz was horrified the ad campaign rolled out without hesitation by the state authority.
"While we are all used to bad decisions by the MTA, this goes beyond anything we have come to expect from them," he said in a statement, the News reported.
"The MTA could have allowed this show to be advertised without using such offensive insignias."
The Anti-Defamation League's New York director, Evan Bernstein, also called the imagery insensitive.
"On the train, seeing the American flag paired with a Nazi symbol is viscerally offensive, because there is no context as to what it means," Bernstein said. "This ad campaign has a feel of exploiting things that are so sensitive to so many people."
The ad campaign was supposed to go through December 14 — along with 260 posters in subway stations through December 6, the News reports.
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