The DVDs President Obama gave British Prime Minister Gordon Brown are the gifts that just keep on giving. At least they keep giving us new stories.
First, the Prime Minister was offended that he had been given a gift he could get down at the corner Blockbuster. Then, the was offended that the Obama administration hadn’t bothered to learn that he’s not a film fan.
End of story, right? Wrong.
One night last week, Brown got home from a long day of doing whatever it is the British Prime Minister does, plopped down in his comfiest chair, and popped “Psycho” into his DVD player.
Instead of seeing Janet Leigh in the shower, he saw the words “Wrong Region” on his TV screen.
Turns out the diplomatic and technological geniuses in the Obama administration didn’t know the DVD format in the United States is different than in England. So those 25 DVDs Obama gave Brown were not only insulting, but worthless.
(As an aside, we didn’t know about the format difference, either. But we’ve never held ourselves out as glittering geniuses. Glittering smartasses, perhaps, but not glittering geniuses.)
Source: Telegraph.co.uk
This post was last modified on October 18, 2023
View Comments (7)
No no no no... Generalizations here will not work. This does nothing to show any inward-looking mentality. This was ALL Obama and his people. I actually wrote to the UK embassy to apologize (because in light of the past and protocol this was rude) and I received a kind letter stating that they have received so many letters like mine and that UK and US has a special bond and etc... The point being, it is not a shared mentality...
Actually, this article is nonsense. Gordon Brown is known to be a big film fan, and though I'm not a fan of the man and would never vote for him, I do work in the UK film industry, and know that he has done quite a lot of work to try and help build a sustainable film industry here in the UK... hasn't worked, like most of what he does, but at least he's tried... The tories will just divert everything to their Eton buddies.
99% of UK DVD players can be easily hacked with a few key presses on the remote to become region free, so that's not such an issue, though it does show something about US inward-looking mentality...
I heard that Obama was really embarrassed by this and offered to give Mr. Brown an XBox 359. It's not a 360, but it's still fairly good.
I suppose next classless thing the Obama administration will do is offer to replace them with region correct DVDs if Brown mails them back at his own expense with S&H for the new tapes included.
Chalk this up to Obama's "intelligence" team.
The DVDs are in the correct format, just wrong region code. The region codes were added to DVDs to prevent people buying movies, before they were released in their country, from another country, and to prevent counterfeiting.
Nothing to do with the format. The Prime Minister can probably find a region free player in his area, such players are outlawed to sell in America.
This should have happened to Biden. Would have been a bit of retribution for his position with RIAA.
I thought everybody knew this...I've lived in Europe and the formats are different. How this White House hadn't checked that out is so unbelievable. But, when you care so little about visiting dignitaries that you'll let America present crummy gifts like that, why would they research anything, anyway? ..........Did they fire the WH protocol bunch?
Just when this naive, inexperienced couple took over? Just great. Well, we didn't want Americans to look TOO much more dignifed and classy than any other country any more, right? egalitarians rule these days. SO sad.