I think it's revealing. The people who made and commissioned the ad were so ignorant the only way they knew to evoke "China" was to evoke general Asian stereotypes.


The lady doesn't look chinese, the backdrop doesn't look chinese, and she doesn't speak the way Chinese people speak English. It is literally all wrong. The only common thread is that it plays on general Asian stereotypes.


I agree it may not have been a deliberate attempt to be racist but what they created was a racist ad because they didn't know any other way to communicate their message except using the language of racial stereotypes.

That's silly.
The old spaghetti westerns were called that because they were funded by Italians and used mostly Italian immigrants as extras as they played the Mexican bad guys.
Do you think this fact made them racist against Italians? Against Mexicans? No ofcourse not.

If the commercial has to be pulled apart and have the nuances examined in a search for racism, then it is clear that racism wasn't the intended message of the ad.

 

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the question is does she have dirtyknees?

 

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I am 100% positive if you took a northern Italian and an Austrian your average Chinese couldn't tell the difference. I am sure the northern Italian or Austrian might see the subtle difference. An Irishman verses a Scot that your average Chinese couldn't tell the difference either. I am sure the Irishman or Scot might see the subtle difference.

Can you tell the difference between a Dominican and Haitian? I am sure the Dominican and Haitian can. My point being is in a 20-30 second quick ad pointed at middle America where most of those people probably never met a Chinese person couldn't tell the difference.

Ignorant? Yes. Racist? No.

Part of the problem is that most of them people that scream racism and calling other racist don't even know what the definition of the word. They haven't even bothered to look it up. Just what they perceive what is should mean. The word has a specific meaning and I wish people would stop watering it down and lessen it's importance.

 

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That's a strange comparison. Spaghetti westerns didn't have the italian extras dressed like italians speaking with deliberately exaggerated italian accents and always eating spaghetti and meatballs. Which is basically what this ad did.


But I agree that racism probably wasn't the intended message. It just came out that way because the people who made and financed the ad were uniformly idiots who didn't know how to signify "China" except by using anti-Asian stereotypes.

I'm reading she is Laotian/Chinese. The rest is Vietnam redux.

 

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But that is the point. To evoke "China" the ad is using general anti-Asian stereotypes. Whether you want to call that using racial stereotypes or racist or some other word isn't what interests me particularly. The ad clearly relies on general racial stereotypes. Whether it does that because the ad makers are idiots or because of sinister motives I don't know but I'm inclined to think it's just because they're incompetent idiots who couldn't do any better.

As someone who is stereotyped on a daily basis I think you are being overly sensitive, but we'll just have to disagree here.

 

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Seriously, what do you think is the overboard part of the ad? The rice patties? The woman? The bicycle?
I thought of mid/SE asia when I saw it.
I did not think of Korea, or Japan, or Mongolia. Maybe some people did. China has been in the news tied to our economy for some time.
For as quick as the ad was I think it inferred enough to point to China in most people's minds without trying to mock Asians in general.
Again I agree it was a clumsy ad, but its a political ad on a minimum budget.

Honestly what I found to be the funniest thing was mr pete 'spend it NOT' spending the cash to do a super bowl ad. THAT is what needs to be thrown at this guy imo.

 

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