Sick of people shouting RACIST!!!!! towards everything...
So damn sensitive, slavery is long gone.
Get over it.
Not for racism, but getting tiered of people shouting Racism at everything, if anyones racist see what happens if a white guy walks up to a black gang in the street in a rough area.
Cracker isn't offensive to me, but in the book its just as racist as the N-word.
I think that this is a bit of a joke really, and representative of the over-sensitivity so abundant in America today.
The ad obviously depicts the woman as a jealous girlfriend/wife, which has absolutely nothing to do with race. However, because this is America, and because Americans like their drama, race is instantly brought into this. If it had been a white girlfriend accidentally knocking out another white woman, absolutely nothing would have come of it. However, because this ad dares to use people of another race, it is immediately considered racist and reprehensible.
Race is going to be an issue as long as people keep seeing it, talking about it and even just bringing it up. The congresswoman, while her intentions may have been good, is just emphasizing a (in this particular case, non-existent) difference, and not doing her cause any good.
TL;DR: What. The. Fuck. Why bring race into this at all? Is the congresswoman trying to imply that there aren't jealous girlfriends who happen to be black? Is she trying to imply that while there might be, portraying them in a role no one would think twice to see a white person in is wrong?
It's "racist" because after she hits her with the can, they run away instead of helping her up. Also, it portrays the black lady as whacking her husband all the time (which most of them do, but whatever.)
Now, what REALLY would have been funny, is if it was a white lady pegging a black one in the head. Then the NAACP would be suing Pepsi.
My test was simple, just mentally replace the races in my head and see if it is no longer funny (i.e. is this playing on a racial stereotype).
... it's not racist.
However I did the same test again changing the genders of the people and it is definitely sexist. If it was a man was kicking his wife, pushing her face into pie, stealing her food, throwing cans at her then feminists across the country would be up in arms about the advert promoting domestic violence, ... plus I'd like to point out that the guy doesn't look fat, and this advert is pushing an unrealistic and unhealthy body image for men!
Yeah, so it's sexits. Guys laugh it off, but we shouldn't because young boys everywhere are being exposed to the message that violence against men is socially acceptable.
We must take a STAND!! No violence by women against men... unless it involves fluffy handcuffs and the women in leather
So if a white woman throws a can at a white woman it is funny. But if a black woman throws a can at a white woman it's racist, is our generation not past this sort of crap. This has been blown out of proportion.
Everyone who says this is racist is a racist themselves. Would it be ok if the couple were white, too? You think it's funny when white people fight each other, but the sacred cow is slaughtered when a white woman and a black woman fight?
Furthermore, you're taking away the right for black people to fight white people by imposing such an act as racist.
How the congress views racism:
Are there black people in the ad?
Are they doing anything that isn't absolutely perfect?
If yes: RACISM!
Seriously, not that big a deal.
The only racist part is when the guy says maximum taste, and that's barely.
And I HIGHLY doubt she has a sense of humour
It didn't even matter what race anyone was in that ad.
Had nobody made a point about it in the first place, I'm sure it wouldn't have mattered to most people.
Racist and offensive, are you kidding me?
Well this has finally confirmed to me that a large group of people on a gaming forum site are more intelligent than the majority. Way to go America.
That's because people who play games enough to go on the internet and talk to people on there instead of people met face to face is for nerds, and we all know nerds are the smartest and richest percentage of the population.
OT: The fact that the people calling it racist because it could possibly be construed as racist if you actually take race into account is in of itself, racist. The joke was that the wife/girlfriend was mad about her boyfriend/husband looking at other women. You could swap the actresses for the jogger and the wife/girlfriend and the joke would still be funny and make sense. However, if you actually take time to look at take the actors races into account it could potentially make it funnier. I mean, if you think that way (and being from an area that has more racists than intellectuals, it has unfortunately rubbed off on me) it could kind of make it funnier, thinking at the end that the guy was like, "Oh shit! White woman down! RUN!"
To this, I only have to say one thing. The way I test if something is ok is by a reverse test. I.E. If I was in the restaurant, at their home, or for some reason in their bathroom and I saw the husband doing this to the wife, I have to ask myself if I'd be ok with that.
To even the soap one, I'd have to say no. Especially no to the throwing of the can. I think a lot of us would at least take the wife aside if we caught their husband doing this to them and ask if they are alright. If it looks fine on both sides, it's ok. If it's 'acceptable' on one side... no, it's not truly acceptable at all.
I think you're both being reactionary. In the first place, I admit it wouldn't seem right if the sex roles were reversed, but there's a good reason for that. The trope the ad is playing on is the "wife obsessing over husband's health." I've seen this is numerous sitcoms, from That 70's show to that Tyler Perry sitcom. It's an exaggeration of the cultural dynamic by which the wife nags the husband about his health, and it's well established in pop culture and comedy. But it's not the same the other way around. "Man obsesses over his wife's health" is not a common trope, and wouldn't make sense in a satirical commercial. That's the reason you get a slight dissonant feeling when you think about the reverse situation.
Speaking of the abuse, the reason she "attacks" him instead of just taking it away is because that would be mundane and non-contextual. In other words, not clever, therefore not funny.
About the soda can. Notice a dramatic shift in tone right at the end of the commercial. This is purposeful. The irony is that well-meaning, ultimately harmless violence ended up severely wounding some random passerby. This is the crux of the tonal shift. We've moved from a caricature of "nagging wife" behavior to what would really happen if she were to act like that in real life. You can't take it out of context and say "this is clearly abusive." Yes, it is abusive. It's aware, and it's building the joke out your impression of the violence before. Where you (that is, where you should have) dismissed the cartoonish actions of the earlier scenes as camp and silly, suddenly the ad goes, "What if that was real life?"
(BTW, the other half of the joke that makes it work is simple physical humor. They use it on AFV all the time. Dude falls off his bike and it looks like it really hurts. Nut shots? They really hurt. And they're funny. Geddit?)
The woman in congress mentioned that some "women of all colours" did not like this advert. Completely ignoring the existance of male opinions. Considering her extreme perception of the video, my extreme perception of her speech makes me think she's being sexist.
I think you're both being reactionary. In the first place, I admit it wouldn't seem right if the sex roles were reversed, but there's a good reason for that. The trope the ad is playing on is the "wife obsessing over husband's health." I've seen this is numerous sitcoms, from That 70's show to that Tyler Perry sitcom. It's an exaggeration of the cultural dynamic by which the wife nags the husband about his health, and it's well established in pop culture and comedy. But it's not the same the other way around. "Man obsesses over his wife's health" is not a common trope, and wouldn't make sense in a satirical commercial. That's the reason you get a slight dissonant feeling when you think about the reverse situation.
Speaking of the abuse, the reason she "attacks" him instead of just taking it away is because that would be mundane and non-contextual. In other words, not clever, therefore not funny.
About the soda can. Notice a dramatic shift in tone right at the end of the commercial. This is purposeful. The irony is that well-meaning, ultimately harmless violence ended up severely wounding some random passerby. This is the crux of the tonal shift. We've moved from a caricature of "nagging wife" behavior to what would really happen if she were to act like that in real life. You can't take it out of context and say "this is clearly abusive." Yes, it is abusive. It's aware, and it's building the joke out your impression of the violence before. Where you (that is, where you should have) dismissed the cartoonish actions of the earlier scenes as camp and silly, suddenly the ad goes, "What if that was real life?"
(BTW, the other half of the joke that makes it work is simple physical humor. They use it on AFV all the time. Dude falls off his bike and it looks like it really hurts. Nut shots? They really hurt. And they're funny. Geddit?)
I don't know how reactionary I'm being, but I'll follow along.
By saying it's commonly done doesn't make it an untouchable ideal in our society. I agree with you, it is commonly done. But that does not make it right.
I simply say it's not acceptable if one can question it on one side, but rather not on the other. There is no difference in sides other than perception. i.e. Fat kid mocks skinny kid for being skinny, ok. Skinny kid mocks fat kid for being fat, bad. Now, the situation for both of these sides is the same. A belittles B for physical appearance. If that action is unacceptable one time, it should be unacceptable at all times. Fat people shouldn't get a break because they were picked on. Skinny people aren't?
It's like this. I had a hell of a time feeling like I fit in because I grew up in a white neighborhood in (at the time) a predominantly affluent and Caucasian city. I wasn't often the target of many racial attacks, but people damn sure went out of their way to remind me that I wasn't their kind. Now, I took the few true racial attacks out of proportion (i.e. feeling that the sentiment is bubbling under the surface of all white people) and lumped it together with the white kids and adults really not knowing how to act with me, and it made me go to a militant phase.
Because of the previous 'slights' to me, I found it perfectly ok to make white jokes. However, with age comes maturity. I eventually realized through 'all the good I was doing sticking up for myself and educating of the wrongs done to me and my people', that first stupidity was compounded by the fact that I was making fun of them and few people like that. Especially when the person doing it makes them feel guilty for trying to do the same exact thing.
I learned if I wanted to be just a person, I had to act like just a person. No special subgroup or whatever. Just Obsidian.
Now, it's commonly done to make fun of white people. They are the America of the world, everyone just take your pot shots. But just because everyone does it does not make it right. It causes a divide, and if there's one sentiment I've heard over and over on this very forum, it's that people want to have the same freedoms and just feel like their rights are being respected too. The first step to doing that is taking all the unbalanced "It's ok if A does it, but feels somehow wrong if B does the same thing" and throwing that in the garbage.
Now, it's commonly done to make fun of white people. They are the America of the world, everyone just take your pot shots. But just because everyone does it does not make it right. It causes a divide, and if there's one sentiment I've heard over and over on this very forum, it's that people want to have the same freedoms and just feel like their rights are being respected too. The first step to doing that is taking all the unbalanced "It's ok if A does it, but feels somehow wrong if B does the same thing" and throwing that in the garbage.
I agree with you entirely. Regardless of what you think should be done, actions should not arbitrarily be considered acceptable or not based on insignificant factors.
So is it safe to say you think it's perceived as "ok" if the gender roles in this commercial are as they are, but that if they were switched it wouldn't be? In real life (as in, if I saw these types of things going on in the street or at a friend's house) I would agree. But this was a joke in a commercial. That distinction may seem arbitrary at first, but I argue that it's not. One should be able to recognize that these are simply archetypes based on complex real world situations, and not take the fact that they're used in the ad as an endorsement.
That being said, I know that a persistent exposure to a certain stereotype -- or any idea -- can lend it more credibility. In other words, media can affect perception. But that's not the argument I'm hearing. That argument I hear is that the ad perpetuates the sexist double standard all on it's own, or somehow more significantly than other instances of this in media. Even if you're arguing that the constant reinforcement of this idea is biasing public opinion, you have to acknowledge that the individual examples are not responsible. They're not intended to have this effect, and likely, the producers of the thing are not even aware of the problem.
But personally I don't think every stereotype or archetype or trope needs to be eliminated from pop culture. Part of the reason such things exist, and most of the reason they're so prevalent in advertisements and popular media in general, is because people know what to expect from them. If we suddenly got rid of every stereotype, authors would have to develop an ethos and persona for every single character they create, and work out ways to explain their motivations within the context of the story. That actually sounds great on paper, though I think it would turn out to be more of a pain than anything in practice (think of all the support characters no one would be able to understand), and more importantly, it would make the job of the advertiser impossible. You don't have time to establish a unique character in most advertisements. This explains why they went with the "domineering wife" figure and the "helpless man" eying the "inexplicable sex object." These are things that the intended audience (presumably adult males) can probably relate to, or at least know someone who can. It's not an endorsement of spousal abuse. It's an exaggeration, designed to get the viewers together on common ground so they can relate to the actors, and therefore the product, in an environment that pleases them. It's funny stuff they can relate to.
Well clearly you did not see the Old Spice Superbowl commercial.
Mind you, Old Spice wins everything, even when it doesn't.
Also...
I'm a white guy but my keyboard is black,
and since I'm typing on the keyboard, which is black,
I AM TOTALLY RACIST!
..How the fuck could that ever be considered "racist"? I mean, honestly. I just laughed at the girl getting smacked in the face by a Pepsi can.
SnootyEnglishman said:
Um..that was supposed to be accidental. If you look closely the woman saw her man giving googly eyes to another woman and the can was meant to hit him. Acting in defense the man ducked and the projectile just happened to hit the Caucasian Female. It was all mere coincidence and nothing more. To accuse it of racism is just silly.
Here in Southern Louisiana I've formulated a racism test:
-If it was meant with hate or meant to hurt/bash someone and their race then it's racist.
-If you look at a normal situation and -needlessly- see race being involved when it really isn't, then THAT'S racism.
For mixed race interactions, reverse the races of those involved. Is it still offensive (for the same reason)? If it is, the offense is situational rather than racial. You may have simply assumed additional offense where none was meant because you share the offending party's race. If it isn't, it MIGHT be racist. Proceed to step 2.
Assume the cast had been all one race, starting with the presumed victims (in this case meaning an all black cast). Is it still offensive? If so, reverse races again (all white cast). Still offensive? If not, it could be racist. Otherwise it was situational.
Finally, try replacing the minorities with any other ethnic group. Does it still make sense (regardless of whether or not it is offensive)? If so, it wasn't racist. If it doesn't work for other groups, then congratulations; it was probably racist.
If you're pretty sure you've found something racist, how should you respond?
Was it clearly derogatory, harmful or hateful, e.g., depicting a minority as inherently stupid, lazy or violent? Call them out on their racism. It's important to let them know that we won't tolerate that behavior.
Was it mostly harmless and just in poor taste, e.g., assuming black people all eat watermelon and fried chicken? Chalk it up to bad taste and let it go. You can voice disapproval, but don't get your pants in a bunch over it. It just isn't worth it.
Here in Southern Louisiana I've formulated a racism test:
-If it was meant with hate or meant to hurt/bash someone and their race then it's racist.
-If you look at a normal situation and -needlessly- see race being involved when it really isn't, then THAT'S racism.
White woman hits black woman = Either, "racist attack", "black women are weak" or "racist because black women never get to hit white women, it's always the other way around".
Black woman hits white woman = "Black women are violent", "Black women are racist against white women" and so on.
What baffles me the most about these morons why cry racism every ten seconds: If it were that obviously racist, then why aren't the people involved bothered?
It's like with South Park where it gets accused of racism, the people voicing the black people are black, they are clearly not offended, so why the hell is anyone else.
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