Cartoon T-shirt Ruled Offensive at Airport

Monday 14th of July 2008 03:26:22 AM

Cartoon T-shirt Ruled Offensive at Airport

Brad Jayakody is a clean shaven young man with eyeglasses and short hair from Bayswater, central London. But he apparently was “stumped” when airport officials objected to his cartoon Transformers T-Shirt. He was stopped and challenged by the security at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 when they saw that his cartoon T-shirt depicted a cartoon character holding a gun.

According to Jayakody, he was challenged by airport officials in mid May. The incident took place during a pre-flight security check. Mr. Jayakody told reporters, “He says, ‘We won’t be able to let you through because your T-shirt has got a fun on it.’ I was like, ‘What are your talking about?’ The goon’s supervisor comes over and goes, ‘Sorry, we can’t let you through and you’ve got a gun on your T-shirt.”

Mr. Jayakody claims that he had to remove his T-shirt and change to another T-shirt before he was allowed to board his flight. “It’s a cartoon robot—what threat is it to security or offensive to anyone at all?” he said.

A spokesman for BAA-the quasi-private outfit that operates seven major British airports, owned in turn by the Spanish Grupo Ferrovial consortium, claims that there was no record or formal complaint of the incident. They are denying that the incident ever took place. However, the spokesman did say, “If a T-shirt had a rude word or a bomb on it, for example, a passenger may be asked to remove it. It it’s offensive, we don’t want other passengers upset.”

Whilst the offending T-shirt may have only had a cartoon robot that had a gun, it is apparent that guns of any nature do not belong in an airport. Even if that gun is an imaginary one and is being held by an imaginary character such as a Transformer, it is not appropriate. Jokes such as this do not belong in an airport where the security doesn’t seem to appreciate the humour.