WARNING: Language in article may offend some readers.
TORONTO – An Australian camper van service has come under fire after a Change.org petition called the company out over its “misogynistic and degrading” slogans.
Paula Obrbea started the petition after her 11-year-old daughter spotted one of the Wicked Campers’ vehicles over the weekend while driving with her grandfather.
The van in question had the phrase; “In every princess, there’s a little slut who wants to try it just once,” painted across the back.
“My daughter was upset by this because she felt, as a girl, that the slogan was referring to her and it made her fear being perceived that way – especially by someone she may cross paths with who may agree with that perspective,” Obrbea wrote on the petition page.
Based in Brisbane, Wicked Campers launched in 2000 as a way to offer discounted van rentals. Now with 34 locations around the world, including the United States and Canada, the company’s fleet of graffiti-covered vans have become popular among backpackers and younger travellers on a budget.
Other offensive phrases featured on Wicked Campers’ vans include: “A wife: An attachment you screw on the bed to get the housework done,” “I wouldn’t trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn’t die!,” “Fat girls are harder to kidnap,” and “Save the whales, harpoon a Jap.”
The company has been the subject of complaints in the past and the Queensland government plans to debate later this month whether their slogans should fall under the same policies that governs outdoor advertising.
Wicked Campers’ Leanne Webb says they “don’t try to be controversial.”
“We just want to have a good time. We poke fun at everything more broadly, it’s never specifically targeted at anyone in particular at all,” Webb told SBS.
Obrbea doesn’t see it that way.
“I agree with free speech, but where is the line? At what point do we say no, that’s not morally correct?” Obrbea told Australia’s ABC News.
Obrbea’s petition, which is addressed to Wicked Campers founder, John Webb, had over 85,000 signatures as of this writing.
Leanne Webb said the company is not worried about the negative publicity.
“We think it’s fantastic, things are more fun when they’re banned,” she told SBS.
“It’s great that people get offended. It’s great that people have opinions because it means they know what they like and what they don’t like.”
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