encyclopedia of racist products

I think whiney is part of the cats & dogs 2 promotional street team and has just tricked us into getting hyped for this movie

Let everybody in the world know this movie exists and think it sucks is a better condition than having a few people think the movie’s great before it comes out - James Cameron Whiney G. Weingarten

The HP fuck up does beg the question: does Hp have no one of dark complexion working anywhere in the R&D, testing, and marketing process? I mean, you'd think this would have been discovered at some point. I wonder if the thing needs to be "calibrated" or something.

HP calibration settings: "normal", "black"

psyched for cats & dogs 2

What the fuck is wrong with you, Australia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FftZt-Dw_hQ

Harry Connick Jr. to thread

Hey if there was an Aussie offering me fried chicken I'd let him off.

That is just... I mean... Wow

"too easy"

conjudalad (22 minutes ago) 0 Reply
Get over yourself Americans. You are commenting on an ad you know NOTHING about. The world does not revolve around you and your dumb stereotypes. Get the chip of your ignorant shoulders

KingMacintosh (1 hour ago) 0 Reply
If anyone one, especially blacks think this is racist, crawl back in that shell you came out of, this is not a bit racist whatsoever...

tramtrackharry (1 hour ago) +2 Reply
it's not an american ad; it is in australia and they're at a cricket match. the black people are west indian. u dont understand the ad thats all.

i'd be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but, and i understand cricket, i have no idea what the joke the ad is trying to make.

If anyone one, especially blacks think this is racist,

seriously, assuming the ad is not saying the obvious thing that stands out to an american audience, wtf is it saying?

kfc (and fried chicken as a thing) probably arrived in australia in the 80s or 90s and i'd be staggered if even 5% of the population was vaguely aware of lol fried chicken racism. this is why i'd give the benefit of the doubt, assuming i could parse the rest of the advert, but i can't.

You could have inverted the black and white people and the core joke it was trying to go for would have been clearer (wiggle your way out of an uncomfortable situation by offering your enemies our food!). It's kind of massively unforgivably stupid that they didn't do this.

This is reminding me of another great KFC ad of old:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkxvxV-S4wM

(of course, Hammer did that one to himself)

unforgivably stupid is a bit harsh. the only way an australian would be aware of this is by reading ilx racism threads or watching ghostworld.

my guess is the guy is a fan of one team sitting alone in a crowd of opposing fans?

^^ yes

KFC is a global company based in the US; I'm sure someone in their organization is aware of both the Internet and how this commercial would play on an international level.

race and racism have global commonalities; if anything, US media dominance makes US race-relations MORE visible and valent on "local" racial issues.

i know australia is a magical island far away in the south seas but come on.

i guess the problem is if you want to make it at a cricket match, you've got to have fans of a different ethnicity, because teams are not so identified with particular colour shirts, etc. and that ends up being extremely crude and weird, whatever races you pick. obviously the bucket of fried chicken and the particular combination of races makes it very o_O for americans, but i really don't think they're referring to that stereotype. ignorance rather than malice, etc.

i think you're forgetting quite how backwards the people of australia are, dan.

In furthering non-racist Aussie-US product relations, I would like to alert everyone that many Target stores are selling Tim-Tams on clearance under the Peppridge Farms label:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3117/3188959774_bfe8ee8ee2.jpg

i'm no dom passantino, but i think i'm reasonably up on u.s. culture. i had no idea about the chicken thing until about 5 years ago, fwiw.

i think you can overestimate the extent to which u.s. culture has become dominant. and which bits of it have become dominant has little to with what is the most controversial or interesting in the u.s. -- just because something is genuinely shocking to you, it doesn't mean someone in australia is any more likely to be aware of it than, say, the king of queens.

they're delicious! bought some the other day at the dollar store.

no question someone at kfc hq should have caught this, btw, but whiney's initial post was "What the fuck is wrong with you, Australia", not "What the fuck is wrong with you, KFC"

i guess the problem is if you want to make it at a cricket match, you've got to have fans of a different ethnicity, because teams are not so identified with particular colour shirts, etc.

I dunno. I think if it would have been a crowd of people wearing green shirts, and one guy in a blue shirt (or whatever), the idea that he was in a crowd of people cheering for the other team probably would have been clear.

i only watched the commercial, no sound: i thought the plot was he's surrounded by rowdy non-white fans, he gives them fried chicken, and they calm down. is that not what happens?

Did I hear something about a racist product controversy that also involved cricket?! Well, hell-o!

Complicated by the fact that no one is doing anything that's ACTUALLY threateningly "rowdy" in the first part! I guess that would have been too unfriendly even for KFC/Australia. But the problem with that is that the only threatening thing about them ends up being their different race. Which is even worse.

I think that this is much less about chx wngs and more about the calm white person being distracted to annoyance by the black people and sibsequently being able to control them.

xxxxp, if you want to make it a localized ad in the southern hemisphere summer, which there are good reasons to do, it's going to be a cricket match. if the crowd are wearing team colours then it is going to look like someone who know's nothing about cricket made the advert. of course if the alternative is "be racist", you pick the slightly inauthentic costume design, but this assumes "this is racist" was something that occurred to them.

full disclosure: I know very little about cricket ;)

"for those times when you don't have tight pussy, loose shoes, or a warm place to shit, offer kfc. they love it!"

like everyone else has been saying the racial dynamics are weird even absent the fact that its fried chicken

but id expect nothing less from a paradise of tolerance and harmony like good ol AUS

This is actually pretty insensitive and bad, yeah. The issue is that he's clearly wearing an Australia shirt, and there is a big historical rivalry between the (almost entirely Afro-Caribbean) West Indies and the (almost entirely white) Australians, and to be sitting among fans of the opposition is inevitably going to lead to one being barracked, but it plays upon a pretty racially-defined stereotype, and plays upon it bluntly. If it wasn't fried chicken, this advert would be fine. But it is, so it isn't.

kkvg i don't think it's about that, i think it's an attempt to find camaraderie through the international language of stereotyping

Complicated by the fact that no one is doing anything that's ACTUALLY threateningly "rowdy" in the first part!

yeah, this is what i'm saying about not understanding the advert. i have no idea what is going on.

like everyone else has been saying the racial dynamics are weird even absent the fact that its fried chicken

― max, Wednesday, January 6, 2010 4:06 PM (11 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yes. I was typing a bunch of stuff, but that's basically it.

If it wasn't fried chicken, this advert would be fine.

not really buying this tbh!

If it wasn't fried chicken, this advert would be fine. But it is, so it isn't.

hahahahaha oh dear. ok, lj is here. i'll leave you in his capable hands.

You could film the ad easy by having different shirts, and when the isolated dude stands up to cheer the rest of the crowd goes silent and turns to stare menacingly. No need for the racial subtext and the joke would go over better if anything.

although i will say, the racial dynamics may look weird, but fans of opposing cricket teams are generally of a different race, but when they interact it's not necessarily about race. i'm not saying they're colour blind though. i think we can all agree that australia is a prettty racist country.

dude doesn't seem bothered by the fact that they're supporting another team but that they're dancing and having fun

West Indies fans are generally well-known for partying in the stands, having a ball, getting into the spirit. They're not being portrayed in a 'rowdy' or negative light; if anything's offensive about this portrayal it's a trivialisation of the WI fan as fun-loving plot device for chicken commercial. The threat isn't to the Aussie's health but his dignity. I *think* the Aussie is being portrayed initially as unable to get into the spirit because it's not in his genes to party like that. Hence, self-deprecation. But yeah, the rivalry is the key here, in the first part of the advert. The second part is the offensive bit.

I'm sure it was made to run during the series between the two Commonwealth sides but AAAARGH. Whatever the history of KFC in AUS, ad agencies are supposed to run due diligence on their campaigns if only so their company doesn't do the classic 'launch Chevy Nova in Mexico' move. This really should have come up in a meeting.

You could film the advert.about a different Australian sport where people wear team colors?

I think we can all agree that this ad is just racist enough to have a 500-post-long clusterfuck discussion about it

if anything's offensive about this portrayal it's a trivialisation of the WI fan as fun-loving plot device for chicken commercial

I hope you realize that this fragment, when diagrammed, isn't saying quite what I assume you meant.

xxpost

One day international shirts have colours, why not lone Aussie surrounded by Barmy Army or South African fans? The point is, as soon as you recognise that maybe this ad is "lol a bit dodgy" you ought to probably think how to reshoot it?

why not have the west indian surrounded by menacing aussie fans