This week Wellington officially became a laughing stock, a bullied child, a ginger. With its plans to erect – snigger – this ridiculous ‘Wellywood’ sign, Wellington became the city equivalent of the fat middle-aged man driving a Porsche convertible.
“Look at me,” the sign boasted loudly to the outside world, “I may be fat and old and useless but I’m driving a Porsche convertible,” while internally we all know the city’s citizens are worrying about getting it up.
The sign that is. Gutterminds…
The preposterous plans to build a sign declaring itself the feature film making capital of a country that makes bugger all feature films is, no matter which way you look at it, outright embarrassing. And that’s just in concept. When you get to what the sign actually says, well then you move into truly cringe-worthy territory.
As an Aucklander I’ve followed the story with detached bemusement and stunned disbelief. Disbelief that someone down there thinks it’s a really rad idea, and bemusement at, well, the exact same thing actually. So let me spell it out for this person: Hey, Wellington Airport dude, a giant sign that says Wellywood is not a rad idea.
If anything it’s a cry for help. Wellington is obviously suffering from such a massive inferiority complex that it needs to boast to all the Aucklanders flying in for the day on JetStar that a couple of films have been made there.
So what? Here’s the thing Wellington Airport dude, no one from Auckland cares that a couple of films have been made there. No one.
Also, I have never, ever, heard anyone refer to Wellington as ‘Wellywood‘. It is not a phrase that had entered the popular lexicon. For good reason. The main one being that ‘Wellywood’ rolls off the tongue like a square wheel made of concrete and stupid.
If Rotorua wanted to make a giant sign saying ‘RotoVegas’ in the style of the famous Sands Casino sign that would be a) awesome, b)tongue-in-cheek (a defence the Wellington Airport dude has been using) and c) entirely appropriate. RotoVegas is used by everyone, so much so that you hardly ever hear anyone aside from news weather people actually call the city by its actual name of Rotorua.
Ditto for Hamilton. A giant sign utilising the movie font and presented in towering glowing neon stating ‘The TRON’ as you drove into, through and straight out of Hamilton would be, in my opinion anyway, pretty kick-ass.
But the main thing I don’t get is why the Airport wants to build it anyway. I’ve heard the Wellington Airport dude say that it’s a good advertisement for the airport. But that makes no sense. Why do you need to advertise an airport? It’s not like Wellington has a plethora of airports to choose from. If you’re flying to Wellington, then guess what, you’re landing at Wellington airport.
Here’s a newsflash for the Wellington Airport dude who obviously didn’t get the memo; Hey Wellington Airport dude, you’ve got the monopoly on people flying into Wellington. There is no competition. Everyone is already flying into your airport. You don’t need to advertise. You’ve got them. Sign or no sign. They’re yours.
Truth be told, I don’t really care if Wellington gets it sign or not. On an international level it’s embarrassing as all hell but I live in Auckland so, you know, whatevs. And besides up here we got 99 problems, but a sign ain’t one.
Also, the contrarian in me does hold some small admiration for the Wellington Airport dude who is masterminding the whole thing. Despite widespread, vitriolic condemnation he’s sticking to his guns. He’s like Tom Petty in that he’s gonna stand his ground and no, he won’t back down. He’s gonna build that damn sign and not you, nor your Facebook group, nor the turncoat Wellington City Council, nor Hollywood itself is gonna stop him damnnabit. I do have to respect his “screw you world” attitude.
I also do think it’s a good thing that someone wanted to build something momentous and out of the ordinary in today’s day and age. Sure, it’s a crying shame that it’s a rip-off of another city’s momentous icon, and it’s embarrassing that it’s such a terrible pun, and it’s just awful that it’s so terribly lame, but at the very least it’s something. Which is probably the nicest thing you can say about it; it’s something.
But yes, when I first heard about it I laughed and I mocked and said things like, “hah shame Wellington, you so lame,”. And then I remembered Auckland’s much mocked and maligned Council approved branding exercise from a couple of years ago and I stopped laughing and mocking pretty quickly.
Yes, a few years ago some brainiac in the Auckland Council’s advertising agency came up with the idea that our city slogan should be “Auckland A”. This would be pronounced “Auckland Eh”, playing on many Aucklanders annoying habit of saying “eh” after every bloody sentence. Sometimes coupled with a rising inflection. Not only this but it was supposed to be a greeting.
So instead of saying “Hi”, you’d say “Auckland A”. This isn’t even the worst bit.
No, the worst bit is that once you said that, I would then reply with a hand sign that made the letter A as my reply greeting.
Funnily enough when this was proposed it got laughed out of town. Hopefully someone got fired. But there was much public scorn and derision poured on the idea. Much like what is going on down in Wellington right now.
So Wellywood? Well I’ll tell you what, I wouldn’t. Eh.
