"The Man in the High Castle" ads on a New York City subway car have been pulled after backlash over the Nazi-esque symbols promoting the Amazon series.
“Half the seats in my car had Nazi insignias inside an American flag, while the other half had the Japanese flag in a style like the World War II design,”
straphanger Ann Toback told Gothamist. “So I had a choice, and I chose to sit on the Nazi insignia because I really didn’t want to stare at it.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo applied pressure to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to have the ads removed after what
WCBS-TV said was a "livid response" from some passengers about the wrapped ad on the 42nd Street Shuttle or S Train. The MTA reportedly made the call to ditch the ad, not Amazon as previously believed.
The ads were created to promote the Amazon series "The Man in the High Castle," which is based on the 1962 novel by Philip K. Dick that reimagines a history where Nazi Germany and the Axis powers had actually won World War II.
"The governor asked the head of the MTA this afternoon to make sure they were pulled,"
MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg told Entertainment Weekly Tuesday.
The New York regional director of the Anti-Defamation League criticized the ad campaign, claiming that it did not offer enough context as to why the Nazi-like insignias were being shown.
"On the television program, which explains this is the notion of an America controlled by Hitler, you get that context," said Evan Bernstein of New York's Anti-Defamation League, according to the Gothamist.com.
"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. The fact that the flag is spread across the seats only compounds the effect. This ad campaign has a feel of exploiting things that are so sensitive to so many people," he added.
"The Man in the High Castle" creator Frank Spotnitz told EW that he agrees with the wrap advertisement flaw, but added that the actual show is hard to advertise.
"It's very difficult with a show with subject matter like this to market it tastefully, so I understand they're walking a very difficult line," Spotnitz, who is also the executive producer, told EW. "If they had asked me, I would have strongly advised them not to do it . . . I read what the director of the Anti-Defamation League said, and I thought he was 100-percent correct."
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