It Ain’t That Serious…
Unless you live in a cave I’m pretty sure you’re aware that the Superbowl was this past Sunday. Actually, I take that back, because I’m pretty sure even Bin Laden invited some of his closest infidel friends over for hot tea and infidel finger food and led them in a spirited “Who Dat” chant when the Saints won. The last stat I heard on the number of viewers for SB XLIV was 106 million households (PTI guys better be right), so naturally this would be a good time for corporations to promote their goods to such a vast audience. Super Bowl commercials are actually anticipated just as much as the game itself. And for good reason; Super Bowl spots gave us the Budweiser frogs, Jordan and Bird, and the jovial office linebacker, Terry Tate. This is probably the only non-pay-per-view 3 hour event that has the ability to hold your attention for its duration. And would you believe that a corporation managed to offend a few of their African American viewers? But hey, what else is new…
The offending commercial in question is the Doritos ad where the 3 year old smacks a grown ass man. If you didn’t see it, here it is:
Pretty funny right? Well not to everybody. There’s a few brothers and sisters out there seriously peeved at the Doritos ad people and Frito-Lay. Apparently this 30 second gem reinforces the single black mother, over sexed black male and bad ass black child stereotype in less than minute. How’s that for multi-tasking?
What’s the big f*ckin’ deal? If you really wanted to, you could read racist overtones into everything. It’s not like the dude busted down the doors with a bucket of KFC wearing overalls and a straw hat. It was only one kid running around, not several and his name wasn’t J’merioseanquan. (If this is the real name of someone out there, please don’t try to get at me in the comments section about etymology. It ain’t that serious.)
Black folks need to take it down a notch and try not to have Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson on speed dial for every little thing they may deem offensive. We’ve got bigger image problems than a dude checking out a MILF then getting smacked by an Osh Kosh B’gosh model. By no stretch of the imagination am I saying that we should become numb and ignore blatant racism, but you also can’t be uber sensitive to every little thing you see on TV. Instead of worrying about how the images of African Americans are depicted in a 30 second ad, you should really be more concerned with the fact that companies like Frito Lay were able to directly market their version of crack to children and their parents in prime time. You’ve probably already made a subconscious purchase of Doritos based on all the chatter about the ads. So while you may think the conversation in the Frito Lay ad department went something like this:
Project Leader: We’ve got some extra money in budget this year, let’s put down Black people.
Team: Hell yeah!
It probably went more like this:
Project Leader: Ok, so based on our demographics, the African American community is one of the top consumers of our product, so we need to directly market to them.
Team Member: I looked over the treatment for the ad, I think we should change a few things, because it could come off as offensive to some folks.
Project Leader: So what? Worst case scenario, they buy Cheetos instead. We own that too. Stop yappin’ and get back to work.
Now if you ain’t mad about that, it ain’t that serious.
Personally, I like the commercial. As a fan of violence and intimidation, I applaud lil’ man’s choice of the open hand slap to put dude in his place, and admire his awareness to immediately get in his grill after laying down the law. It was very entertaining and almost made me mad I didn’t grab a bag of Doritos during the food run. Would it have been better if it was a reincarnation of the Huxtable family instead? Probably not, because black folks seem to find everything racist. Should I be offended by this commercial? Are you? Don’t you want a bag of chips now?
Chippin’ and dippin’,
Modern Day Matchmaker Series: Stop Mean Muggin’!
The Modern Day Matchmaker, Paul Carrick Brunson, is back at it again. This week he talks about something that’s not just relegated to Black women, but to people in general. This is a very positive video with good points and comedic value as usual. And as you’ll notice, even when he tried to be positive in a major way, the mean mugs showed up as usual. Some people just can’t be happy. Enjoy!
Oh yeah, and make sure you share your thoughts on the video. Do you agree? Do you disagree? Are you a chronic mean mugger? C’mon. You know you got something to say.
- Help Us Grow!
-
23 Comments