Forget the 12 days of Christmas: nowadays, the holidays begin the very same moment that the big retail chains start rolling out festive adverts (so, sometime around early November). This year, one of the first to be aired has plenty of people claiming it’s not as innocent as it seems.
Marks & Spencer kicked off the 2017 Christmas ad party with a beautiful mini-movie about Paddington Bear.
In the advert, which stars the iconic character from Michael Bond’s 1958 book of the same name, Paddington does his best to assist Father Christmas in delivering all of the presents in his sack – especially as he notices one of them to be for his good friend Alice.
Except, well, it’s not actually Father Christmas. It’s a burglar, who’s pretty perturbed when the sweetly oblivious Paddington helps him to return every single stolen present back to the houses they originally came from.
Cue a big life lesson about the spirit of Christmas, right and wrong, good will to all men and redemption arcs. Because, of course, that wily thief soon sees the error of his ways.
Or does he?
While most people felt nothing but warm fuzzy feelings after seeing the classy bit of commercialism, others have found fault with the ad.
Why? Because they think Santa/burglar actually says, “F**k you, little bear.”
Yup.
M&S has since come forward to dismiss the conspiracy theory to Digital Spy, with a spokesperson snippily saying: “He’s saying, ‘Thank you, little bear’. We think it’s really clear.
“We wouldn’t change the ad.”
So there you go. Any swearing heard is clearly a reflection of our own Grinchy tendencies….
Images: Marks & Spencer
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