Dear all

I am very pleased to report that Bristol City Council and Destination
Bristol have acted swiftly and appropriately to address the
"destination Bristol" video. Please see below for more information,
and thanks to all who took action to highlight this issue.

Best wishes
Helen


> Dear Helen
>
> Thank you for your e-mail and for alerting us to this. I have
> spoken to Jon Hallett from Destination Bristol . The section of the
> video you refer to was filmed at the Hobbs fashion show which takes
> place annually in Bristol, not at a lapdancing club. That doesn't
> alter the fact that consideration wasn't given to how these images
> objectify women and reflect negatively on gender equality and the
> city. Jon Hallett deeply regrets the offence caused. He is
> committed to re-editing the film within the next 2 weeks to ensure
> these images are taken out.
>
> Thank you again for identifying important gender issues - we need
> to do better at anticipating this type of issue but in this case
> will now rectify the problem.
>
> Gillian Douglas
> Equalities and Community Cohesion Manager
> Bristol City Council



>> Visit Bristol, the official website produced by Destination
>> Bristol (owned by Bristol City Council and GWE Business West) has
>> just released a new video ("Bristol video tour 2008) promoting
>> Bristol as a tourist and corporate destination.
>>
>> If you click on link below you will be directed to the uTube site
>> which displays the video. At about 50 seconds into the 3 minute
>> clip (showing all the best bits of Bristol) we get to see the back
>> view of an erotic dancer in a sparkly red thong bikini shaking her
>> (naked) buttocks at the camera as she gyrates in front of a crowd
>> of onlookers seated at tables watching her.
>> http://visitbristol.co.uk/site/pictures-of-bristol
>> http://uk.youtube.com/user/visitbristol
>>
>> You may feel that this is unhelpful in promoting Bristol's vision
>> of itself as a modern city where men and women are equal. It is
>> certainly the government's view that table dancing clubs - which
>> is what this looks like - "contrib[ute]... to a sex object culture
>> that underpins discrimination and violence based on gender". You
>> may question how this film was passed for distribution.
>>
>> I will be writing to Destination Bristol at
>> enquiries@... to alert them to the problem
>> and hope that others will do the same as well. I hope they will
>> remove the clip in question and withdraw outstanding copies of the
>> video.
>>
>> Helen Mott