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PSP Ad Draws Charges of Racism
Lord Kano writes "The Guardian Unlimited is reporting that a new Sony ad for the upcoming white PSP has caused an uproar because of claims that it carries racist overtones. The ad depicts a white woman, clad all in white, grabbing the face of a black model in a dominating pose." From the article: "It's questionable whether the world is ready to explore themes of race and domination in the context of a videogame console ad. Although not as wilfully controversial as Benetton's infamous 'United Colours' campaign, many viewers will be unwilling or unable to decode the imagery until it becomes about two different colours of plastic." What do you think about this latest in a long line of PSP ads of questionable taste?
I like how a Keith Stuart (a games blogger from the UK Guardian) can comment on the state of racial tension in two countries he doesn't live in.
In America, it's called "racism." In Europe, it's just people trying to protect their culture. To me, it's called "ignorance." Ignorance is everywhere no matter how hard we try to eradicate it.
America's quick to cry foul play because of our recent history, yes. It's seen as very important to be equal opportunity here. Do I walk down the street and feel conscience of other people's skin color? No. Some people in America still might but it's only due to their ignorance. I've only seen someone oppressed once because of their skin color and it was because I was in Alabama for a wedding and my Indian friend was rubbing someone wrong at a bar.
Why is Turkey having a hard time joining the EU? Hmmmm? One of the reasons cited is fear of mass immigration to the UK or Germany for work. There have already been two waves to Germany that upset the locals.
My work here is dung.
All they had to do was buy one billboard, now everyone in America knows about the racist ad, oh and they know about the white psp too. These guys really know how to get the bang for the buck in advertising.
>What do you think about this latest in a long line of PSP ads of questionable taste?
I think it worked. We are discussing the PSP now and talking about an ad most people here wouldn't know about if it weren't so 'controversial'.
If the media would stop magnifying everything different between blacks and white, then this crap wouldn't be perpetuated. Black, white, who gives a shit. Just enjoy the ad for what it is... it's cool. I don't believe that the creators want to string up blacks and start slavery. This is just ridiculous. Move on with your lives people.
http://religiousfreaks.com/I'm sure Sony know's what it's doing. Get people talking about the PSP, doesn't it? Besides, how many people aren't going to buy a PSP because they're offended by this? I highly doubt the thin-skinned politically correct crowd is much into gaming anyway. Still, I'm not sure what the appeal of a white handheld is. I'd be much more inclined to buy the black version if it was the same price. I don't know why, but I find black a much more asthetically pleasing color for my hardware than silver or white.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
A US outrage at an advert in Holland is no different to the Muslim outrage at depictions of Mohammed in European newspapers.
Yes, it deliberately uses the contrast of the women's races as a metaphor for the difference between the available colours of the PSP. And yes, the white woman is acting aggressively towards the black woman.
But acknowledging their races, even pointing it out deliberately and using it as a marketing gimmick, is a long way from racism. It's not as if people are supposed to walk away from that ad thinking that the white PSP is better because it's associated with white people. It's not using stereotypes or ridiculing the black woman in any way. It's just saying "hey, here comes the white PSP and it's going to take the world by storm, and here's a picture to grab your attention". With, of course, the added bonus that it gets lots of media attention for causing controversy.
Not everything involving race is racist. Too many people forget this and seem to want to make race a taboo subject. That's ignorant in itself.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
This ties in with a discussion I had with a friend recently (you know a discussion is going to be interesting when it starts with the question "do you have any interest in BDSM?"). Anyway....
I think the racisim here is in the minds of the watchers. Would this be racist if it was a black woman and a white man? Would it then be sexist if it was a white man grabbing a white woman? In a full on dom/sub relationship it makes sense for the sub to do the dishes and house work and other such things, so if the sub is a woman, that fits with the "standard sexist gender roles" right? What about a master slave relationship? Is it somehow bad for a black woman to want to be the slave to a white master?
Whats worst, a black person being a willing slave to a white person, or trying to tell that same black person what they can and can't do in the confines of their life and sexuality?
This is all silly. The knee-jerk racism reaction is ridiculous. Isn't the whole goal of tolerance and antiracism to teach us to see people as people rather than black people and white people? Black people have as much right to be submissive as a white person if thats what they want!
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
americans are way too sensitive to racism these days
What do you think about this latest in a long line of PSP ads of questionable taste?
I think thousands of people now know PSP is coming in white... mission accomplished. If you don't like the ad, don't talk about it.
Um let's look at this one.... ..... ... ...
Current PSP comes in black only....
New white PSP is coming out....
Sex sells
Attitude sells
Lets mix black, white, sex, and attitude in one commercial
Instant racism. Now that's synergy of ideas working for you.
Am I the only one who thinks the ad is just plain stupid looking? I don't get how that conveys "white PSPs are coming". Mostly it just looks like some bad soft-BDSM.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I'm not saying that this should be censored. It shouldn't.
But this feels like trolling -- deliberately saying or doing something controversial, to draw attention. And trolling is lame.
If they choose to open this door -- to associate an electronic device that has nothing to do with race with all of this ugly history, just to be titilating -- then they deserve whatever they get.
> the success of an add is whether or not it propts you do buy the product
Ad success is partially determined by whether it sticks in your head or not. Oftentimes it's too hard to determine if a particular ad resulted in a sale. This is because there's a time lag between when you see the ad and when you purchase. So they usually measure ad effectiveness by your ability to recall the ad after varying periods of time. So if you remember the ad two weeks from now, then they'll call it a success.
However, the ultimate purpose of all advertisements is to make you have a favorable attitude towards a product or service. So a particular advertisement, even if it's offensive, can be a success if it gets your attention, but you eventually forget about the offensive ad but remember the product in a good way.
However, it's been found that if you don't like an ad, you will associate negative feelings towards the product. Thus, there is such a thing as bad publicity.
The other spots put the ad in context, but I suspect they were created just for the purpose of having plausible deniability -- "Hey, we're not being racist! Look at the other spots [that you wouldn't have noticed before if we hadn't had the offensive version shown first]". However, I don't their intention was to be racist, but rather to be controversial (like the old Benetton ads). Sony was hoping to get tons of inevitable publicity from a racist ad, but they had the other two produced to shield themselves from the inevitable fall out.
It's important to remember that any major corporation (or political entity, for that matter) carefully scrutinizes every single element that goes into an ad photo. They hire psychologists for the sole purpose of this.
Like the old Simpsons episode, if you want advertisements to go away, stop paying attention. Just don't look.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Whoo, signature!
DesireCampbell.com
They are linking the colours of the PSP to race therefore it's technically racist; equally regarding both skin colours involved (see how I got my point across without using the W or B words?).
Sony will obviously be aware of this, which is why they have done it. The simple fact is that I have seen that advert now, which has made me think about a PSP and the fact there must be a white model coming (meaning there must be a black model already out) and I would probably never have seen that advert.
It's called 'marketing'.
Black woman over white woman?
RACISM!
Oh wait, it's only racism if it's the other way around.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Well, as an American born and raised to 8 in Illinois, grew up to 15 in Texas, and attended college in Ohio (Cinninati race riots POV.) I can tell you that where you live makes a huge difference in your perceptions of racism. Personally, I don't think we should lighten up; you should get serious. Racism does not occure in a vacuum; it's like a coal fire of hatred in the hearts of men (and women.) Some of the smallest sparks can smoulder for years after it seems to be put out and the more embers you pile on; the greater the chance to rekindle the violent flames of hatred.
There may be more than one image to this campaign, but it doesn't matter which is being percieved; the message is the same: White vs. Black (on the PSP) and I for one don't like it one bit.
Demented But Determined.
You had to know that this would happen, though. If every single one of Sony's advertisements depicted a black woman dominating over a white woman, nobody would say a damned thing. As soon as ONE ad pops up showing the white woman in the domaninant position, well, then it would be considered absolutely outrageous.
I'm sorry, but in the United States, slavery and apartheid of black people ended on a national level a long time ago. Of course there will be individuals who are still racist; that will always be the case, I'm sure. But enough is enough already. Just drop it, PLEASE. And that's not a message just toward cold blacks, that's toward the cold whites, too, damn it.
Honestly, look at how racial diversity is crammed into everything. You almost never see an advertisement that doesn't include a black person or an asian person right up there with white people.
In my humble opinion, the glorification of the black community is racist in and of itself. Take black history month, for example. A whole month devoted to the accomplishments of blacks. What is this telling us? That we need somebody to show us the accomplishments that blacks have made, lest they go unrecognized? Or that if we know about the greatness of an accomplishment, we'd damn well better know about the color of the skin of the person who achieved said accomplishment, given, of course, that the color of their skin is black. There's no white history month, is there? White entertainment television?
And affirmative action is the worst, by far. Take scholarships granted to a college student just for being black. "Oh, he's black, the poor thing; we should give him extra money because he's black." is exactly the message that affirmative action sends to me. That a black person is helpless and stupid and should be greatly rewarded for making it to college, an institutional concept that sees millions of new people each year. How is that not the most extremely fucking racist thing you've ever heard?
Mod me down, if you're offended; I don't even care, because I'm fed up with this whole racism thing.
But this feels like trolling -- deliberately saying or doing something controversial, to draw attention.
Oh, absolutely, this is a troll. All ads try to draw attention; this one tries to do it by shocking the viewer.
The gaming industry probably is due for an explosion of ads. It makes a lot of money, and yet the commercials I see very occasionally are running on kids' shows in the afternoon or something. If Nintendo's really trying to blow the market open and appeal to something beyond the usual gaming market, you'd think they'd want to run some prime time ads.
This is also, like beer, one of the industries that can be free wheeling with its ad strategies. Airlines can't advertise with much humor or self-deprecation without taking a big risk, so you get classy commercials -- "Rhapsody in Blue" and that United livery airliner backlit by the sun, you know? Whereas beer can be funny in offhand, goofy ways and take some risks.
I betcha we get more of this style of ad. This one is past what the U.S. would tolerate, but trolls, as John Dvorak or any sports columnist can tell you, get the eyeballs. They work.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Is the ad potentially racist?
yes.
However racism depends on sevreal factors for recognition, to someone insulated or otherwise un-exposed to a diversity of cultures on a personal and frequent basis such an ad would be unlikely to convey any racist undertones to them.
Racism greatly depends upon historical perspective. Without a history of oppression or ill-will surrounding race semi-fresh in the minds of the viewers it would be very difficult for any given imagery or prose to evoke such a moniker.
However, in the ad we have a white woman all decked out in white mencing a black woman in black, attached with "white is comming" as a slogan. Intentional or not, satire or not, literal or not, product advertising or not... it carries obvious racial unertones.. even if its creators have no recist intentions, it is almost blatantly made in a manner delibratly based upon racial issues or at the minimum a HUGE leap of total ingnorance to the world we live in.
Of course the intentions are all the more obvious by the markets they have decided to place it in, as the non-US release clearly indicates they knew just how the US (with a much more diverse population, and more open race relations issues) would react.
Bottom line is, the ad puts a black person in a position of total infiriority to a white person, with a tag line that emphasizes that aspect.
Its inflamatory at best.
As a note of intrest there are the other two images, which "balence it out"...
* White woman over black woman.
* Black woman over white woman.
* White woman and black woman on equal footing
But of course this is pointless, the other two images have little to no relevancy in the worlds current climate of race relations. (of course if we had a succeeding couple hundred years of black oppression of the masses, and subsequent social revolution... the situation would likely be just as inflamatory in the opposite direction).
The real issue here, is such an advert reinforces negative stereotypes and relationships in our still healing society. While subtle it would serve to influence our children giving them (children of all races) cause to somehow believe just a "tiny" bit more in white supiriority, seeding racists, low self esteem, etc...
Until the rifts between under-represented and marginalized minorities and the power wielding majority (still overwhelmingly white - and largely male) are diminished, such forms of "advertising" will remain bad mojo.
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
Black woman over white woman? RACISM! Oh wait, it's only racism if it's the other way around.
That's because black people haven't used white people as SLAVES. It's not about racism per-se, it's evoking the memory of slavery and humilliation of black people in the past centuries.
So Spy vs Spy, draughts, chess, or a Pint of Guinness (white on top) are actually a metaphor for conflict between races? I feel so guilty for enjoying these things now. I'm going to go and kick some shame into myself very hard. This whole attitude that anything represented by black and white must have racial meaning is just ridiculous.
As a child, I had a genuine childrens book called 'The Little Black Sambo' about a small boy who lived in the jungle with his parents and made butter from a tiger. Now THAT is offensive and racist.
Why would any multinational be interested in alienating a huge market by offending them with advertising?
Your optimism strikes me like junkmail addressed to the dead.
How about: "Here's someone that had to face an educational disadvantage growing up because: their great grandparents were forbidden by law from owning property or passing it on to their kids, causing this person's grandparents to work crappy jobs rather than go to school, causing them to be too busy and ill prepared to participate this person's parents education, causing them to be too busy and ill prepared to assist in this person's education. In order to stop this cycle, let's give this person a chance to get educated. Additionally, because of institutional racism, historical racism in education, and the first problem of parents not being able to assist in their kid's education, a large number of people of the same race as this person were poorly educated for generations -- which only fed the stereotypes. Educating this person will reduce that problem as well."
"Honestly, look at how racial diversity is crammed into everything. You almost never see an advertisement that doesn't include a black person or an asian person right up there with white people."
i ling.html
Let's see here:
- How many female, non white in congress ?
- Any female or non white President yet ? don't think so.
- How many fortune 500 CEOs are female or nonwhite ?
- How many major metropolitan media are owned by female, nonwhites ?
- How many females in the Supreme court ? or lower court?
- How many nonwhites is anchoring for a major news network?
Stop belly aching - racial attitudes are real and still persists.
They are perhaps not overt, but still present.
Check out the site below for some glass ceiling charts based on EEOC data:
http://www.80-20educationalfoundation.org/glassce
Travel to a country like Brazil where centuries of mixing have
produced a wide range of skin colour and you will feel a very different
attitude. It's not better, just different.
I wouldn't call the 1960s a long time ago, There are still plenty of people alive now who were alive then.
But I agree. They need to make a distinction between real racism and just racial differences. Black people have black skin and white people have white skin. No amount of magical anti-racism laws will change that. The ads aren't racist at all. The point of using a black and white woman was to show the difference between the black and white PSP, not slavery roles! They probably made sure they used women just for the purpose of trying to prevent that imagery from showing up (since of course it is the Man who was the slave and slaveowner). Does that make it sexist?
As for affirmative action, I put that into the "Do you want EQUAL rights or EXTRA rights?" I lump woman's rights into the same thing. really any group that thinks they aren't being treated fairly. There should not be a law for any group giving them MORE rights than others, just laws preventing their rights from being taken. Quotas and scholarships for minorities are really just punishing the student who does not have the "advantage" of being a minority as well as putting the school or workplace at a disadvantage by requiring them to hire/accept based on race and not qualifications (If you are required to hire 10% minorities, what of only 5% of your qualified applicants are minority?) Race should be IGNORED in the application process, not corrected for.
- Not all minorities faced that situation
- Some whites have faced that situation
The problem with Affirmative Action is that it declares things based on race, not opportunities lost. That is the very *definition* of racism BTW. Frankly I wouldn't mind at all if a portion of scholarships went to folks who were *poor* regardless of race. Affirmative action assumes that all minorities are disadvantaged, and is very insulting. But it's racism "for your own good" so it will never end... - C.S. Lewis"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
The ad isn't racist, nor are the people looking at it. The ONLY people that seem to be racist are the hyper-sensitive Americans looking at the ad and applying their own screwed up values to it.
I see the ad as potentially racist, while I personally I don't see racism. The ad provides insufficient context, which leaves it to the individual viewer to create context. Those who have experienced racism, or have been consistantly exposed to the images of racism may fill in different context than somebody who has not experienced such things. People in the US can accept the images of a black player hitting a white player, or vice versa, in the sports arena because there is context, ethnic identity is trumped by team identity in the mind of the viewer.
I'm sure the image of a white man standing with his foot on the back of a prone middle eastern man would evoke responses in certain communities.
People in different parts of the world with different histories can look at the same image and interpret it differently.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
First of all, don't push the old myth that affirmative action involves quotas. Quotas are illegal in the US, and are never used for affirmative action. Take the time to look up how it actually works. Second of all, you are forgetting that the US still has a huge racism problem. We need affirmative action because minorities are still unfairly excluded from jobs. Maybe you haven't experienced it yourself, but if you're white then you likely never will.
You aren't kidding. Being from around Cleveland, every time I've gone to Cinncinati I've been struck by how it seemed like it was part of the deep south, rather than another city in the same northern state. The differences in racism/racial-tension is increadable.
Being from the Deep South, I often wish that people would understand that:
1. The Deep South isn't nearly as racist as the New York / West Coast media loves to depict it. (It also isn't as inbred, uneducated, violent, redneck, and unsophisticated).
2. There are many places that are NOT in the Deep South which are just as racist as the way the Deep South is depicted, as you have demonstrated here.
I would honestly love to be able to talk about race relations where I live (Atlanta area), because the situation is quite a bit more complex and interesting than most non-Southerners think it is. But I don't think non-Southerners are generally interested in my point of view. In general, I think non-Southerners are quite content to think of me in terms of those horrible stereotypes that I've heard all my life, and a more nuanced discussion is light-years away from their realm of interest.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Ouch, I'm rather late on this, but...
Has anyone asked a black person how they feel on this? As far as I know, the only people who get agitated over racism are white. I don't know any black people that would consider this racist (especially since there's two more ads, one with the black over the white, and one with them together).
I am *Hispanic and the 1st generation born in the United States. I have received Affirmative Action. I have blond hair (or did, it is brownish now), blue eyes and skin so white that anything less than 80SPF is bad news.
Tada!
Affirmative Action is the assumption that all people of a certain ethnicity are the same and different from people that are not of that race. This is obviously not true.
BTW if we follow your logic, how about blacks of other countries?
If Blacks are in the situation they are in as a result of history (which I agree with, btw) then why continue to offer a helping hand to blacks that have "made it"?
The way to make Affirmative Action more equitable is to discriminate on economics instead of race as the GPP suggested.
--Joey
*I hate saying that. I am a freakin American. I have little in common with non American Hispanics.