On the hall here in my dorm, there was some discussion about what the best super bowl commercial was. Since I didn't watch the game, I just looked up the ads people were talking about on YouTube. Probably my favorite was the Pepsi Max one:
The last scene was completely unexpected; the sudden shift in tone, combined with the notable schadenfreude, really made me laugh. That's when I noticed the comments section lighting up with accusations of racism. The argument I could pick out most clearly was that is was because the black woman had hit a white woman in the head, and to paint that as humorous was racist (and I'm not even sure which race was being marginalized). But you know, I just thought, Eh, YouTube, and went on my way.
Then tonight I was channel surfing and I landed on The O'Reilly Factor to find that they were talking about the same thing! Not only that, but it turns out that the reason they cared or even knew about it was because a member of Congress took the floor for a minute to***** talk about it. Here's the footage from the proceedings:
The Congresswoman actually didn't say that much about it being racist; instead, she said it "showed a demeaning role for African American women." She did however, very pedantically state the race of each person involved in the last scene, thereby attributing some kind of importance to it, which is probably where the race thing came from. The lady on Fox arguing that the ad was racist primarily tried to show that this was just a single instance of a long history of pop media portraying black women as "battle axe," or in some other negative light. I just went back to the YouTube page to check out what was happening there, and the new argument is that it's a sick joke trivializing spousal abuse.
If you found this ad offensive, please, do tell me why. Because I'm strapped for a half-decent reason. And really, how can an esteemed member of Congress be so reactionary? In Congress. On the floor.
EDIT: Poll failed. Are the codemonkeys at the Escapist working on this yet? They should be.
EDIT 2: I want to respond to the defense that it was an "accident" again. The problem isn't that the wife character was a racist in the ad, it's that the writing was racist. Its jokes are based on a racial stereotype and a white woman getting beaned by a black woman.
That is to say, that's the argument. I've pretty succinctly called bullshit on that line of reasoning though.
The last scene was completely unexpected; the sudden shift in tone, combined with the notable schadenfreude, really made me laugh. That's when I noticed the comments section lighting up with accusations of racism. The argument I could pick out most clearly was that is was because the black woman had hit a white woman in the head, and to paint that as humorous was racist (and I'm not even sure which race was being marginalized). But you know, I just thought, Eh, YouTube, and went on my way.
Then tonight I was channel surfing and I landed on The O'Reilly Factor to find that they were talking about the same thing! Not only that, but it turns out that the reason they cared or even knew about it was because a member of Congress took the floor for a minute to
The Congresswoman actually didn't say that much about it being racist; instead, she said it "showed a demeaning role for African American women." She did however, very pedantically state the race of each person involved in the last scene, thereby attributing some kind of importance to it, which is probably where the race thing came from. The lady on Fox arguing that the ad was racist primarily tried to show that this was just a single instance of a long history of pop media portraying black women as "battle axe
1) The race of the actors had very little to do with the content of the ad. This becomes clear if you imagine the ad with actors of a different race. It still makes sense, doesn't it? The only racial stereotypes that are even plausible here are a) black women are hard asses, and b) black dudes like white women. However, the "controlling wife" trope exists independently of race, and no race specific variation of that is apparent (for instance, the head jerk/finger wag accompanied by "oh no you di-ehn!"). The "man gets in trouble for checking out ladies" trope also exists independently of race, and since he did not single the white one out of a group of black alternatives, there's no reason to suspect the scene is playing on the stereotype that black men like white women.
2) The "abuse" the wife perpetrates on the husband consists of a) kicking him under the table at a restaurant, b) pushing his face in a cream pie, and c) replacing a burger he was about to bite with a bar of soap. The first is hardly abuse, the second is a play on classic humor (pie in face... come on, this is loony toons stuff), and the third was just because he was hiding in the bathroom to eat his fried food. You could count the incomplete can to the head as an example of "real" abuse if pressed, but since it was intended for another purpose, that's a bit of a stretch. More convincing is the idea that she's being controlling and/or psychologically abusive because she's forcing him to eat healthily. That's wrong though, because it's obviously an exaggeration of the pressure to be fit and healthy wives put on their husbands intended for comedic effect. All of these are conventions of slapstick and comedic hyperbole. To condemn this is to condemn the Three Stooges for asserting that all men in groups are thugs.
3) Even if it were the case that the image of the black female is being twisted due to an implied stereotype perpetuated by mass media, that does not make specific instances of the image in media individually culpable for the entire phenomenon, and certainly not one 30 second commercial to the exclusion of thousands of instances of movies, sitcoms, other commercials, images, books, games, and other miscellaneous media. Frankly, if you want to assert that popular media is perpetuating an offensive stereotype of blacks, especially black woman, for comedic effect, look no further than Big Mommas [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1464174/]. Or for blacks generally, anything by Tyler Perry. Or Chris Rock.
4) While I'm sure she found plenty of people willing to complain about the ad during the 6 and a half hours she was waiting for her stylist to finish her hair, this was probably not a big concern of the people who elected her to office. In fact, I'm almost certain no one who was sitting there watching her speak leaped up afterward, brimming with a sense of duty and demanding reparations for this hateful ad. And that's sad, because if it really had been offensive, that might have given them something to do in place of the jobs that none of them have. It may have only been a minute, but it's a minute that speaks boundlessly about her priorities as an elected official.
2) The "abuse" the wife perpetrates on the husband consists of a) kicking him under the table at a restaurant, b) pushing his face in a cream pie, and c) replacing a burger he was about to bite with a bar of soap. The first is hardly abuse, the second is a play on classic humor (pie in face... come on, this is loony toons stuff), and the third was just because he was hiding in the bathroom to eat his fried food. You could count the incomplete can to the head as an example of "real" abuse if pressed, but since it was intended for another purpose, that's a bit of a stretch. More convincing is the idea that she's being controlling and/or psychologically abusive because she's forcing him to eat healthily. That's wrong though, because it's obviously an exaggeration of the pressure to be fit and healthy wives put on their husbands intended for comedic effect. All of these are conventions of slapstick and comedic hyperbole. To condemn this is to condemn the Three Stooges for asserting that all men in groups are thugs.
3) Even if it were the case that the image of the black female is being twisted due to an implied stereotype perpetuated by mass media, that does not make specific instances of the image in media individually culpable for the entire phenomenon, and certainly not one 30 second commercial to the exclusion of thousands of instances of movies, sitcoms, other commercials, images, books, games, and other miscellaneous media. Frankly, if you want to assert that popular media is perpetuating an offensive stereotype of blacks, especially black woman, for comedic effect, look no further than Big Mommas [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1464174/]. Or for blacks generally, anything by Tyler Perry. Or Chris Rock.
4) While I'm sure she found plenty of people willing to complain about the ad during the 6 and a half hours she was waiting for her stylist to finish her hair, this was probably not a big concern of the people who elected her to office. In fact, I'm almost certain no one who was sitting there watching her speak leaped up afterward, brimming with a sense of duty and demanding reparations for this hateful ad. And that's sad, because if it really had been offensive, that might have given them something to do in place of the jobs that none of them have. It may have only been a minute, but it's a minute that speaks boundlessly about her priorities as an elected official.
If you found this ad offensive, please, do tell me why. Because I'm strapped for a half-decent reason. And really, how can an esteemed member of Congress be so reactionary? In Congress. On the floor.
EDIT: Poll failed. Are the codemonkeys at the Escapist working on this yet? They should be.
EDIT 2: I want to respond to the defense that it was an "accident" again. The problem isn't that the wife character was a racist in the ad, it's that the writing was racist. Its jokes are based on a racial stereotype and a white woman getting beaned by a black woman.
That is to say, that's the argument. I've pretty succinctly called bullshit on that line of reasoning though.
