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It’s just plain jaw-dropping what you can find on YouTube these days. In this case, while looking for outtakes of the brilliant parody commercials from the old Dudley Moore classic Crazy People (love that flick!) I accidentally unearthed a big steaming pile of racially insensitive ads I’m sure TV broadcasters would rather forget they ever aired. But the internet doesn’t forget, friends. I wanted to share what I found, and hopefully I won’t ruffle too many feathers while doing it. Some of these will make you feel pretty uncomfortable — and are potentially NSFW — while others are parodies meant to be taken lightly. All, however, are cringe-inducing.
SONY: “Caucasians are gangly”
The clip that started it all, this is a parody ad from the movie Crazy People.
JELL-O
A pretty unambiguously racist ad from the 60s, starring a Chinese baby who learns he can’t eat Jell-o with chopsticks. Also featuring the voice of TV’s most bigoted narrator!
WHIT Radio
A parody spot from Collegehumor. I guess racists love Spin Doctors?
CHICKEN TREATS: AHH GOT DA TASTE!
A study in racial stereotypes from an Australian fast food joint. Not racist but also cringeworthy is the white guy’s haircut.
COCA-COLA
It seems Japanese tourists get a bad rap everywhere — especially, if this stunningly insensitive commercial is any indication, in India.
WING TAXI: chicken so good you’ll slap your momma?
This one’s just a gut feeling. Why does the kid slap his mother in the face? Even if it’s not racist, it’s just ain’t right!
VOLKSWAGON: Suicide bomber
This makes me want to wash my eyeballs. What moron thought this would help VW sell cars?
COLT 45: The cowboy’s choice?
Something about this raw footage from a 1960s Colt 45 beer commercial — perhaps the cowboy outfit, or the way the actor seems like he’d rather be doing anything else — makes me acutely uncomfortable.
OVALTINA: cannibals and missionaries
Monkeys scream in the background as the white maid saves a missionary from cannibals in the jungle. None too subtle.
COLORERIA ITALIANA
The washing powder that turns your slobby white lover into a buff black dude. Some people will find this offensive, and zero people (at least those of us who don’t speak Italian) will understand what the product they’re trying to sell actually does. Pointless? Si!.
Comments (36)
Comment
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These are reaally something! I did see the VW commercial and was amazed that any company could put something so insensitive and offensive on tv but then again part of me is not suprised at all.
posted by JaneM on 10-11-2007 at 7:32 am
The Indian Coke commercial is more about how businesses establishments in India tend to overcharge foreign tourists. But pretty funny though.
posted by Mathew on 10-11-2007 at 8:43 am
OMG.. the “Wing Taxi” is in a town about 30 min from where I live.. I recognized the address and the little bit of the next commercial gave it away for sure (now that is a commercial worth viewing too).
LOL.. u gotta luv Louisiana!
posted by Erin on 10-11-2007 at 8:44 am
the VW ad is a spoof, the only time it was shown on tv was when a couple of news channels picked it up and ran a story on it saying how annoyed VW was at it.
posted by nothingman on 10-11-2007 at 8:50 am
None of the non-parody videos seemed racist to me. At worst, they just weren’t politically correct. You’ve gone to show us that impersonating the accent of the Chinese or fantasizing about a man who has a different skin color than your husband makes you a racist.
You must be really hypersensitive.
posted by JeffC on 10-11-2007 at 8:50 am
I don’t know Italian, but seems to me that the last one is for cloth dye.
posted by Zach on 10-11-2007 at 9:50 am
Probably the creepiest thing about that Coke ad was that the Japanese tourist appears to be a white guy squinting.
posted by Heather on 10-11-2007 at 11:21 am
The new Washington Mutual ads, with the black man charged with looking after the all white bankers, is certainly no better.
posted by 5263 on 10-11-2007 at 12:06 pm
On a very closely related note this reminds me of a car salesman’s advertisement that I read about earlier this week.
Apparently some grade-a genius was trying to sell cars that had air conditioning built into the seats and decided on the headline:
“Tired of the Wet Backs?”
I don’t think I need to mention how very fired this man was.
posted by Christian on 10-11-2007 at 12:36 pm
I think the one for the clothing dye/detergent is hilarious!
What woman doesn’t wish that her washing machine could do the same!
The guy’s race is a non-factor.
posted by Sweet Pea on 10-11-2007 at 12:43 pm
On a non-racist note, in the final ad with the Italian clothing dye, does anyone else find it funny that the young woman is sitting on the washer?? Gotta love spin cycle, especially when there’s a strong black man inside your washer.
posted by Molly on 10-11-2007 at 12:47 pm
I’m with JeffC, none of these ads seem that offensive. The vw ad isn’t offensive to me at all; it’s actually quite funny. I mean in the end everyone is fine except the terrorist, and it does show how tough a vw polo is.
posted by matt on 10-11-2007 at 2:29 pm
A popular saying around here (Louisiana) is that when you eat something that tastes so good, “it will make you want to slap your mamma!”
It is supposed to be funny, not racist. Even white people say it.
Lighten up.
posted by Mary on 10-11-2007 at 3:35 pm
Slap Ya Mama is actually the name of a Cajun/Creole spice mix. I have a house in Southwest Louisiana, and every time I come back to NY from there, I bring a case of it – it makes a hilarious party gift, and people actually seem to really love the flavor (I find it too salty, myself). Their website is at slapyamamaDOTcom.
Anyhow, I imagine that’s the reference.
posted by Megan Romer on 10-11-2007 at 3:52 pm
There’s a Colt .45 ad with Billy Dee Williams that I’ve always found to be… distasteful. He serves it to a young woman and he says to the camera, “Colt .45 – works everytime.” Good to know crappy beer is all it takes to get a woman in the sack. Oh, Lando, how low you stooped with that one…
posted by Seth on 10-11-2007 at 6:37 pm
If you want offensive, read the comments on the various YouTube videos. Some of them make me worry about the future of the species.
posted by Jaclyn on 10-11-2007 at 6:54 pm
That fake radio ad is hilarious. Also, Crazy People is a most excellent movie.
posted by Sara on 10-11-2007 at 7:57 pm
I remember the Volkswagon commercial from a show that had the funniest commercials from around the world. This one didn’t make me laugh.
posted by heather on 10-12-2007 at 12:26 am
I thought the VW one was kind of funny. According to Snopes, it’s not official and it didn’t air as a commercial: It was apparently a resume reel. Considering that VW may have sued the guys who made it, I don’t think it worked.
posted by Sillstaw on 10-15-2007 at 1:09 pm
Well the Indian ad is about a guy who’s been bitten by insects and his face is all swollen up, so they mistake him for a Japanese tourist.
posted by Aly on 10-15-2007 at 3:26 pm
a few of these reasonably funny. none whatsoever made me feel uncomfortable, whoever put this together needs to lighten up a bit, you clearly don’t have much of an idea of what racism is. racism is different to racial stereotyping, racism implies having power over someone. who has the power in our modern society, the scared politically correct whites or the blacks who see and draw upon their heritage as a strength??
posted by thom on 10-15-2007 at 7:47 pm
Americans are corrupt and unable to decipher jokes involving different kinds of people. so you call it racist. It’s not, even if it is for you.
posted by copacabana on 10-24-2007 at 4:59 am
most of those ads are racist, it depends on who created them – but the ones based on racial stereotypes are definitely discriminatory if not racist. Racism and stereotyping are one in the same, racism does not necessarily mean thinking your own perceived race superior to that of another – it ACTUALLY means the idea that you believe there to be actual differences between ethnicities or what is termed “race”.
Race does not exist, it’s just a term used to differentiate people – which of course leads to discrimination and ethnocentrism.
posted by Niko Bellic on 10-24-2007 at 12:45 pm
Get over yourselves. I have spent 10 years living in other countries…..guess what ..we ARE different…its called culture. And if we are all equal, why isnt ok for me to poke fun at peoples quirks. Japanese people are short, and take photos of their food. Black people do like fried chicken…and guess what Asians use chopsticks (which arent always inconvenient for all types of food). Of course their should be equal rights for all people….but most of this stuff is just parody or tongue in cheek.
I would also challenge people to LIVE in another country/culture and see how politically correct other places are (not very) compared to Western countries.
posted by Jason Gehrman on 11-3-2007 at 1:11 pm
None are racist. You were brought up to be too PC.
posted by bernie on 3-19-2008 at 5:26 pm
So why should I have to listen Black people sing. i want to listen to my own white music. Is that wrong? if I did not vote for Obama is that wrong too?
posted by Rigger on 1-13-2009 at 4:35 am
The only way one can declare those commercials “Not racist” is to be completely oblivious to the history of race in the United States. Or the history of colonialism, for that matter.
posted by Zach on 4-10-2009 at 7:49 am
To interject a bit of logic…
To label these spots as “racist”, we must all be able to agree on the definition of what “racism” is (and isn’t). Some say it has to do with power, some say it’s about culture. But if we can’t agree on a definition of the term, it’s impossible to label anything as “racist”. As we learned in Logic 101, we gotta all agree that 1 foot equals 12 inches before we use it to measure anything.
To take race out of the equation, I think some of the spots were funny, some weren’t, some were tasteless. But that’s a subjective opinion.
Sorry about that. Let’s get back to the Race War. It’s ON!
posted by TBV on 4-10-2009 at 9:01 am
WOW! Some people are simply WAAAAY too sensitive! If you lived back in the day of the Jello commercial (like I did) you’d realize that there was nothing racist about it at all. We could garner a smile out of cultural differences without laughing at the people of the culture. There was a separation in the two. The problem today is that a single word can be construed as being racist even if it were not the case. Remember the black judge who threw out a case because the prosecuting attorney used the phrase “a black mark against…” And it continues no matter what the person’s color. Some people need to put their sensitivities in check before making judgements.
posted by Steve S on 4-10-2009 at 10:54 am
“Chinese mother BLINGS baby Jello.” (!?)
Usually the people who claim people are too “sensitive” to these kinds of things are the same people who have never experience racism or are too insensitive themselves to realize how hurtful and offensive these kinds of attitudes really are…
posted by Sensitive white male on 4-10-2009 at 1:56 pm
The VW commercial is awesome. The problem isn’t the ad people on that one but instead the overly sensitive viewers who enjoy being offended and whining.
No one was hurt in it(that matters) and it doesn’t advocate violence.
posted by Nathan on 4-10-2009 at 5:29 pm
@ Steve -
I lived in Japan as a foreign exchange student for a year. Once during a welcome meeting for all the foreign exchange students, a group of Japanese businessmen stood up and proceeded to give speeches, mocking our accents. They spoke really slowly and made lots of mistakes. The Japanese in the audience laughed gently. All of the foreign exchange students sat in stunned silence.
Afterwards they couldn’t understand why we were so insulted. They thought they were just making innocent little cultural jokes. But we thought it was VERY condescending, and VERY demeaning. It was funny, sure, if you were Japanese. But to us, it was downright racist.
It’s not that we were hypersensitive – it’s that it’s really insulting for someone to interpret your cultural difference as slowness, stupidity or inferiority. I’m not going to list everything I found offensive about the Jell-o commercial, but I can certainly understand how a Chinese person would be offended by the portrayal of their culture within it.
posted by Al on 4-10-2009 at 10:49 pm
OMG! I remember the Jello commercial. I used to come running into the room when I heard it because the animation was so minimalistic, and the script was so clever. I’m sure the ad campaign picked up a Clio (advertising equivalent of an Emmy) or two. Of course, everyone on Madison Avenue was white at the time.
What strikes me in the Colt Ad is the long tapered goblet that he pours the beer into. Yes, cowboys always drank their beer out of designer glassware.
Speaking of racism and advertising — Anyone out there remember a movie called Putney Swope?
posted by Davevanfunk on 4-11-2009 at 12:37 pm
to this day i dont understand why only white people are required to kiss everyone elses ass about race
posted by your full name on 4-11-2009 at 2:04 pm
It is a fact that people are different, and to deny this is to reject reality. Everyone deserves the same love and respect no matter who they are, but to deny the differences of the versions of our species is to forget who we are.
If you are offended by something that you feel is culturally insensitive, then you are either denying the differences between you and that person, or you are not willing to understand another persons point of view.
posted by Kutison on 4-12-2009 at 11:21 am
Putney swopes!! My man!!! Yeah those that scream “racism” at every joke or any noted difference are just plain stupid!
I’m in an inter-racial marriage and I know the difference between “racism” and a joke… over-sensitive is also a control freak mechanism- PC is slavery folks!!!
posted by Joekerr on 4-12-2009 at 1:40 pm