Sep 21, 2014 1 min read

LOS ANGELES (AP) – The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority is pulling ads for the Fox television show “Red Band Society” from nearly 200 buses amid complaints they are racist and offensive to women.

The ads show cast members in front of a wall with graffiti describing each of their characters. A denigrating word for a woman is used to describe the character portrayed by Octavia Spencer, who is black.

The Los Angeles Times reported Friday that transit officials began pulling the ads on Wednesday. They had been up for five weeks.

Spencer’s character is described as “Scary Bitch.” A white male actor is called “Coma Boy,” and other actors’ characters are described as “Rebel,” “The Player” and “The Hot Doc.”

Fox said it offered to remove the language after learning people had been offended and that it respected the agency’s decision to pull the ads instead and apologizes to those offended.

Mayor Eric Garcetti, who sits on the transit agency’s board, called on transit staff to review their advertising policy.