Was it Racist or Just Plain Retarded? Of Douches and Dummies.

SENSITIVITY DISCLAIMER:
The title of this post is not meant in any way to offend my many mentally challenged readers, so please stop being such fags.

SENSITIVITY DISCLAIMER II:
The disclaimer above was not meant in any way to offend my many gay readers. I defer to Louis CK.

The trouble the Richards Group finds itself in over the "Hail to the V" campaign for Summer's Eve is mostly because of the stereotyping of Black and Hispanic women. References to spending time on their hair or leopard thongs have been deemed insensitive. For me, the campaign is just stupid. "We'll have hand puppets mimicking vaginas!" someone told the Summer's Eve people. "OK," said the Summer's Eve rep, "But make sure you have a Black puppet and a Hispanic puppet."

It's got to suck when your agency lands an account like Summer's Eve. Some poor copywriter in Dallas got handed a brief that read, "Make the product appealing to a broad range of women, with emphasis toward Blacks and Hispanics. Client prefers a fresh, humorous voice. Need a campaign title and corresponding microsite that expresses the power and pride of having a vagina." That poor copywriter was probably a white girl and she is probably not putting "Hail to the V" in her book. Any guys working on that account were teased at lunch by the other guys in the shop, "Hey, Alan. You working on the Summer's Eve account, right?" And the whole table explodes with laughter as they repeatedly call Alan a douche.

I think the stereotyping charge, while valid, clouds the broader problem that the whole approach was just off. This is not a product where humor really works. But as long as the issue is that one hand puppet is a Black stereotype and another is a Latina stereotype, let's talk about that. I used to do voiceover (and will still if anyone wants me to) and as far as I can tell, Richards used a Black woman and a Latina for the roles of the talking vagina puppets.

I've probably pointed this out here before, but when will the stereotyping of Italians stop in advertising? Seems every local pizza joint has a mama saying, "Eat, Eat!" or a mafioso wannabe threatening you with violence. Rarely are the actors playing these roles actually Italian. And how about those bad Irish accented ads around St. Pat's day? They all sound like leprechauns. Jamaicans can't catch a break in advertising either, with some dork doing his "mon" voice for an ad for a beach bar. But for whatever reason, those stereotypes persist and no one really gets alarmed.

I tuned in (online) briefly to a radio station where I was once employed. An ad for a Mexican restaurant was played featuring a very white man doing a very bad and over the top Mexican accent. I wondered who approved it and if the Mexican restaurant was really Mexican owned, because no Mexican should've approved that ad. Cajun accents are imitated badly all over the country in ads, and even a giant and successful chain like Outback Steakhouse insists on having their jingle singers overemphasize the Australian accent as they sing, "Leyts gaueau dayown to thee Owutbayck Stayeakhowyse nowyu!" People don't really  have accents when they sing, unless they're really trying to, like when those chumps Green Day try to pretend they're British punkers.

So when Richards hired the actors to play the roles of the vagina puppets, did the Black woman read her lines and say, "Seriously? You're going with 'spend time on your hair'?" She should have. Did the Hispanic actor tell the copywriter, "I think this leopard thong line is a little stereotyped, don't you?" She should've at least protested the "ayi-ayi-ayi" opening. According the the Atlanta Post,

"The jive-talking black hand depicting an African-American vagina did not sit too well with the feminine products market. Nor did the saucy misrepresentation of a Latina vagina."

Now Richards has pulled the ads and is busy doing damage control, insisting that the ads were not racist. They'll be fired soon by Summer's Eve, I would bet.

Richards took half a step in the right direction by at least using authentic voices, if not authentic words. I'm not Black or Hispanic, so my opinion as to the racism of this campaign doesn't and shouldn't apply. As High Jive at MultiCultClassics has repeatedly said in one form or another,

"When will the culturally clueless of the ad world realize that no one can decide for others whether or not something is racist? To declare that something is not racist demonstrates arrogance of the highest order. In fact, it often makes the person declaring something is not racist actually look like a racist."

The problem, HighJive has always pointed out (as did Larry Woodward in a recent piece) is that minorities are woefully underrepresented in decision making roles in the advertising industry. That's true, but still, you've got to be one stupid White decision maker to have approved what Richards did for Summer's Eve.

This is Why We Don't Care

Florida has a reputation throughout the rest of the country as being a home for inbreeding, trailer parks, old people and barefoot rednecks. Like most stereotypes, these notions are all based in some bit of truth. Just like we regard Northeasterners as loud, obnoxious and wearing knit caps like they all work at the docks; or how we regard Pacific Northwesterners as pot-smoking, scraggly bearded vegans; or how we think of people in Texas as dim-witted yahoos bent on drinking beer and having sexual relations with livestock. Pick any place, really, and there is a stereotype to go with it. England: bad teeth; Ireland; drunks; Italy or France; philanderers; Australia, criminals; Japan, sex-with-robots - the list goes on.

Of course none of these prejudices are true. And even if they are, here's why we don't care what you think down here in Florida, all you miserable snow-bound pasty cold people bundled up in fancy, expensive scarves and boots, reading your hipster blogs and thinking you're so much better than everybody else.

Ravioli on The Grill

Ronnie the landscaper reveals that's it not all party-time, firecrackers and chasing chicks in his latest video. The character is getting dark, but you'd be too if one of the exes you're in a custody battle with showed up at the last minute with two of your six kids so she could go out with her new man in his "gay-ass, punked-out Monte Carlo."

Ronnie doesn't care much about production values, making his videos pretty simple to produce, but I may have to break down and buy the poor bastard a wireless mic.



Ronnie would like you to be his friend on Facebook. You may also follow him on Twitter. He will only stalk you if you're hot. Ronnie's definition of "hot" is pretty much defined by what he would do to get to know you. For instance, if you heard him say, "I'd suck the dick of the dog that pissed on the tire of the car that took her dirty underwear to the laundromat," you probably qualify as Super-Hot. And of course Ronnie has a blog where he expounds on subjects such as polygamy, tattoos, church, and tries to get Will Ferrell to co-star in his movie.

Ronnie says he is available for brand/product endorsements or for speaking to groups of students about "the importance of education or some shit."

Ronnie owes his existence to Humongo.

Stereotype: The Irish Are Witty and Insightful

One of my favorite bits of Ed Byrne's is his deconstruction of Alanis Morrisette's song "Ironic," but studies have shown that a good many of you won't devote five minutes to a YouTube video embedded in a blog, so maybe you'll watch this two-minute Byrne clip in which the comedian deconstructs Back to the Future.

In the Coming Race Wars

OK, I admit it: I've been obsessing since discovering Xtranormal. I don't know where I was when this free tool was announced back in the first quarter of the year, but the thing has potential. There's something about the deadpan delivery of a flat, computer voice that makes the dialog more fun. This is a great little tool, and I'm not being paid to say this. I'm amazed by the ease of the technology. It's like they say in their tagline: "If you can type, you can make movies." You have to drag some pauses into the dialog and find body expressions (and you may have to misspell some words to make them semi-coherent and audible), but if I can do it...

I think Flash designers are the next skilled pros who might find themselves automated out of a job, going the way of the encyclopedia salesman, travel agent - and most of the rest of us. With some refining, banners will be made with this thing. And this is how storyboards will be created soon; point and click, with the client coming to us armed with her frame-by-frame idea for a commercial. "And here's where my daughter walks into the scene and announces, 'You've tried the rest...'"

My latest juvenile creation: John and Chuck addressing some current stupidity in these Untied States of America, on this First day of October, in the Year of Our Lord, Two-Thousand and Nine. (At Nine O'Clock in the evening.)



Crossposted to Radio Free Babylon.

You Go, (to South Carolina) Girl!

The rage in travel advertising is the "girlfriends getaway." And it's always done the same way. Chicks love, what class? That's right! SHOPPING!

Clichéd, hackneyed and desperate, South Carolina's attempt to get the girls to go wild include these tired images and this sad copy:

Welcome to the shoe-lovers guide to Girlfriend Getaways in South Carolina!

Spending time with your girlfriends, sister or Mom is a great way to share experiences and create memories. But how can they really appreciate a description of a beautiful sunrise at the beach or laugh about getting lost on the back roads of South Carolina only to discover a fabulous winery unless they were there?

So grab your best friend, pack a bag, and book a trip to South Carolina! And don't forget to take home those trophée-chaussures.

Shoe-lovers guide? Of course! All women are obsessed with footwear! And wineries. Chicks also love to pepper their language with what little French they know, showing how sophisticated they are, right ladies?

A Line of Copy That Entered the Collective Consciousness

Friday Flashback Flashback Flashback

I'm not saying it's even good copy, but even if you are too young to have seen this ad, you likely know the second line of dialog. Or more than likely, the customer's last line to "Mr. Lee."



Nice that Asians were at least portrayed as not talking like Rob Schneider in some lame Adam Sandler movie, but they still own the stereotypical Asian business.

It's OK to Stereotype Italians

Had dinner tonight at a local Italian joint called...Alberto's. Yes, we heard no less than seven freakin' Frank Sinatra songs. (I hate that guy. OH, Yes, I said it.) We dined outdoors, though, to avoid the Pacino and Sopranos framed photos inside.

This image is from the menu cover. Pure class. It deserved to be messed with.


It's perfectly acceptable in advertising to stereotype Italians. Next time you hear an ad for a local pizza place or Italian restaurant, chances are pretty good you will hear a guy talking all "Mama mia!"or an older lady encouraging her grown children to just, "Eat! EAT!"

But I will give Alberto's these things: Their food is more than passable and their house wine is fortified.