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Sony Pulls Controversial PSP Ad, Issues Apology
xenongamer writes "Sony has finally stepped up and pulled the racially controversial PSP ads out of the Netherlands. 'We... recognize that people have a wide variety of perceptions about such imagery and we wish to apologize to those who perceived the advert differently to that intended. In future, we will apply greater sensitivity in our selection of campaign imagery, and will take due account of the increasingly global reach of such local adverts, and their potential impact in other countries,' said Sony in a statement."
They released ads in one country, and people with guilty social consciences complained in a totally different country. People need to get a grip, not every country in the world is socially obsessed with black vs. white race relations.
Now pull this one.
How do people from the Netherlands feel about the advertisement? I'm more interested in their opinion than politically correct America. What was the reaction in the Netherlands?
Specifically, one of the ads (there were three) was deemed racially insensitive because it showed a white chick in a dominating position over a black chick. Example article with image here. What people haven't talked about so much is that there are two other ads; one with the black chick in a dominant position over the white chick, and one where they're on equal footing.
--trb
This is my opinion, I have nothing to back it up but I think Sony released these ads with the intent of causing unrest. As pointed out in prior comments on Slashdot, they got some great coverage with this advertising campaign.
But the ads rely entirely on imagery. The pictures I saw didn't even have words on them, just two women. One completely white and one completely black in all respects. As also pointed out earlier there were three images with only the white-on-top-of-black one being controversial.
Why did they pick humans? The humans are supposed to represent PSPs, an inate object? I don't understand why this decision was made to use human beings. Put a black wolf and a white timberwolf in the image. Put a black demon and a white angel in the image. Why would you put two ethnicities of the human race that have obvious baggage attached to them. Even if it doesn't offend anyone you know, there are people alive today that are still suffering from the effects of racial tensions either directly or indirectly.
Why did they pick women? Again, the women are representing a PSP, you're just inviting people to speculate that women are objects. And to gamers, this might be "ok" or welcomed but when you throw it on a billboard, you're only drawing heat.
Why is there a struggle between these two subjects? Why would different colored PSPs fight each other? Are they incompatible? Is one better than the other? Again, I don't understand why they made the decision to pit them against each other in the images.
In retrospect, no matter what their motives or realizations were, I f*cking hate marketing and all forms of it.
My work here is dung.
It wasn't racist at all. Here's why:
Sony had three ads - one where a white woman was holding a black woman by the chin, one wherre the black woman was overpowering the white one, and one that looked more neutral. Of course, everyone screamed "racist", spread the news about the first one, but not the other two. It just took me five minutes to find a site that had the other images. If you go to Google News and search for "sony racist ad" you'll overwhelmingly see only the first image.
FC Closer
It's about time you got your head out of your ass and looked at the other two images.
FC Closer
I'm a firm believer in the idea, "never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity."
I deal with my company's marketing department often; they inevitably display all the forethought and insight of a mentally challenged rutabaga. The chances of this being a consciously racist ad are virtually zero.
Furthermore, it's not like the PSP is doing poorly in the sales department; they really don't need to generate this kind of controversy just to get their name in the media. The planned prices for PS3 is doing that just fine.
At the end of the day, this just strikes me as another attack of the stupids.
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Once, a few years ago, they had some ad with a really attractive woman shaving her face with some new razor, saying, "ooh, is this the sensitive part... poor baby." Obviously, the purpose of the ad wasn't the shaving (or they would have some gruff, bearded man shaving).
So, all the controversy? It was about people totally not getting the ads.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Oh, but the fact that they are of different races means it's insensitive. You wouldn't have a problem with the ad if it were two persons of the same race and gender.
Um, yes, obviously. Or two races who had never had any kind of conflict, say Hawaiians and Arabs. That's called "context" and it's important. These ads don't exist in a vacuum. They exist in our world in which one race dominating, slaying, and enslaving another has been one of the continual themes of history. The ad itself pairs two races who have had such a history even up to today. That's significant. That can't be ignored.
This hypersensitivity is actually serving to perpetuate racist views. It is forcing people to consider race as an issue when people really shouldn't have to.
Race is an issue in many places in the world, and pretending otherwise is not going to make it go away. Racism and racial tensions exist in many parts of the world, and black vs white racial tension and racism exist here in the United States. Anyone who says it isn't is in denial or living somewhere where they don't have to deal with it.
Race is an issue in these ads. This is just undeniable. Racial tension is also an issue. Sony can talk about "color" in the abstract sense of their PSPs as much as they want. These women aren't just white and black, they're European and African. Going at each other. Racial tension? Yes.
But is it racism? I'd certainly say not. If you look at the whole series, it actually looks very passionate. They may be aggressive and combative, but they practically end up on top of each other. As someone else pointed out, the ad is basically about sex. Aggressive sex, but that doesn't make it hateful. Do you think interracial lovers sometimes feed off the racial tension between them? Certainly. In that sense the series is almost cathartic. The artist was using the implied tension towards their goal.
So is hypersensitivity the problem here? Yeah, probably. It's a bit much to call the ads 'racist', though with the "White is coming" tagline and news articles only showing the white-gripping-black billboard, I can see how people would get the wrong impression. Remember though that like most kinds of hypesensitivity this arose from "over-stimulation" from actual racism and racial violence.
Is hypersensitivity perpetuating racism? Well, somewhat perhaps. I had an aquaintence once get mad at me for making reference to the fact that she's black. That act of sensitivity certainly made me more self-conscious of race, but we got along fine after that. I've had another aquantence tell me that he hated having black people around and thought we should deport them back to Africa. Dropped him like a bad habit, of course, but what about when he has kids? My point is -- to whatever extent hypersensitivity perpetuates racism, actual racism perpetuates racism much, much more.
So I suppose I'm going to have to come out in the middle on this issue. No, they aren't racist and the reactions were overblown. Yes, race is an issue in the ads and pretending otherwise is just avoidance or ignorance or whatever. In any event I don't feel sorry for Sony because appology or no they're getting exactly what they wanted from the ad.
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