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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.
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.
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.
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DesireCampbell.com
The media is run by people and people are affected by their own bias. Somebody with no previous knowledge of racism would not think that this ad is promoting white supremacy in any way (especially after they see the other ads).
People looking for racist overtones will see them everywhere. A black co-worker at my last job complained about police racism everytime he got pulled over (not wearing a seatbelt, speeding, drunk driving, etc) even though he deserved to be stopped. He was convinced that the reason he was stopped so often was because he was black while I have never been stopped because I am white. Nevermind the fact that he was a terrible driver who regularly broke traffic laws.
In the case of the Sony ads people are seeing one instance of a white woman being agressive towards a black woman and assuming there is deep anti-black meaning behind it. Really, Sony's ad firm was trying to create a black vs. white ad campaign about the color of the PSP and used white and black people to help convey that message.
The real racists are the people who continually add to the problem by accusing people and companies of racism. They're the ones who can't handle the fact that people come in different colors and that those colors can be used for visual effect in movies, tv and ads. (Just look at how Snipes' black skin and clothes are used in Blade).
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Black woman over white woman?
RACISM!
Oh wait, it's only racism if it's the other way around.
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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.
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.
"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.