tragically hip

In the Washington Post, Anthony Shadid writes about a poignant, ironic ad campaign in Beirut that was born of the chaotic political/social/confessional/economic climate in  beleaguered Lebanon—which one of the campaign’s creators called “a country on the verge of ‘absurdistan.’”

Here’s one of the posters:

Farcical signs list doctors by sect. “If we keep thinking like this, the future is going to look like this,” said ad agency’s Kamil Kuran.

Photo Credit: Courtesy H& C Leo Burnett Agency

It was born out of fear:

 Manal Naji, a 27-year-old senior art director, had glanced at a r?sum? tucked underneath another piece of paper. “Christian,” it read. “We were so shocked,” she recalled. In the end, it turned out it was the name of the applicant’s father, but it gave Naji an idea. “What if it actually existed,” she said. “What if it reached the point of putting it on your job application.”

“We wanted the same shocking effect,” added Reem Kotob, a 25-year-old member of the creative team.

And now it has gotten people to think. 

Many have praised the ads for asking uncomfortable, even taboo questions about a system in which sectarian affiliation determines everything from the identity of the president to loyalty to sports teams. Some have mistaken the campaign for reality. Across the capital, one in six billboards was torn down, prevented from being put up or splashed with paint, usually the tactic of choice for conservative Muslims irked by lingerie ads.