[littl3chocobo]

no, seriously.

i have been watching escapist magazine's 'big picture' segment and for the last couple days there has been an ad for the galaxy note two by samsung, it features a black athlete(or i would assume since the way it is set up suggests he is important and into or a part of sports) going into a barbershop to get his hair cut(well reshaped, he has nothing but stubble on his head and face). he smacks himself on the head, repeats words speaks only briefly, his mates all speak in repeated words and very briefly as well(which is to say nothing is being said at all) he makes exaggerated gestures and grins like a moron(well everyone does, it is supposed to be a 'fun' experience), when someone wants to share something(surprise, surprise sports) everyone crowds around despite being in a barbershop getting their hair cut/trimmed/styled/so-forth-altered in a little circle to watch and then make exaggerated faces and noises before throwing the standard line in of wanting to share with others what they saw

(sorry i can't find this particular edit anywhere else but no other adverts have been playing for me so this /should/ be the correct one just close the tab when it shows the phone so you don't get caught up listening to a guy bitch hahaha)

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vide...other-Watchmen

normally this would just be another lame way of getting in a few fans of whatever(or whomever) in under a needlessly complicated plan to buy but i have seen this something like 40 times now barring the last two or three which i have skipped but the setup (barbershop) group of people(young black men most of whom would be at work or at home) all loitering around and getting excited over a particularly slow-seeming fellow(presumably an athlete) and hooting, crowding and being overly rambunctious over a clip on a phone instead of say, you know staying in their seats and getting their hair /cut/ like they were supposed to be seems more than a tad racist, /especially/ since the whole thing is capped with a feel-good seventies 'black spirit' kind of song

it only gets more peculiar compared to the 'full' commercial i found on youtube which does not show him as a moronic stereotypical black sports jock but some rich dude with a cool phone that he totes everywhere. the longer version give a totally different vibe despite having most of the same footage and wouldn't strike me as racist no matter /how/ many times i saw it(still annoying though, that song is stuck in my head)

(about 50 seconds in)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrtVRh2v3Dk


does anyone else see something odd in this? i realize the blatant sexism in commercials is much more exciting but all the same it seems really peculiar to me that it would be shown this way

[Belial]

I don't see any difference in that scene compared with the white teenagers i see all the time glued to their smartphones/looking at a friends smartphone. I could understand the racism thing if they had fried chicken or watermelon or someone equally hateful.

But a successful African American having a nice phone that I myself can't afford? I don't see what's hateful/Racist about that. Can African Americans not have nice things? Would it be better if it were white teenagers with Britney Spears/Justin Beiber in the background?

And how is racism ever accidental?

[Lady Enzai]

I didn't see anything racist about it at all.
No different from a bunch of white guys looking at a football game on their phones.
I think you're reading a bit too much into it.

[littl3chocobo]

it feels racist because it makes him look like a dumb black guy that, in my region, is taken to be generally what black guys are, unable to talk like coherent adults, concerned with sports to the point of excess, willing to congregate in racially defined ways at inappropriate times and generally very dumb, if someone had alcohol and got angry it would be the same racist bullshit i have to listen to from the more 'country' of my peers who have never seen my father and think i am of the same feeling they are

i have not seen a commercial like that one featuring white guys though and in the edit, an edit for a much wider audience than the gamer group the short ver is shown to, the parts that i am upset about(barring the local and crowding which are rationalized by saying it is early in the day and being done for a special occasion) are absent, he does not have the dumb-guy dialogue, he does not hit himself or make so many faces, the the interaction changes and it is much shorter and faster


and if it were cut so they were white-bread blondes in their parents' nice big houses and hummers then yes, yes it /would/ be racist, you really don't see what i am saying though, there is a different message in the short commercial than the long one, in the short one it is less about the phone and more about the guy and his interaction with the loiterers in the barbershop, in the long one it is really only a rich guy with a phone who did stop at a barbershop for a bit and shared a game clip while he was there


i might be, but i see an unsettling pattern that i would have just taken for granted if i didn't have to actually stop and pay attention



edit; sorry, i forgot to answer this part, i was mentioning it being 'accidental' because it does not seem like they did it to be cruel so much as easy for the average person to digest which unfortunately means making people more 2d and often times in that more steryotypical

[Belial]

Not every white person has a smartphone.
Not every african american has a smart phone.

The focus of that commercial was to sell a smart phone, they are still a rather new luxury item that people want. It wouldn't make sense to focus on a haircut when you are trying to sell a phone and subtly point out its portability, convenience, and entertainment value.

I find it a lot better than this commercial where they try to use a guy's sexuality to sell a deodorant. At least with the phone commercial, they actually focus on the product as opposed to using sex to get the product to sell.

I'm on a horse!

[littl3chocobo]

oh dude yeah, i know that commercial and several of the other versions, pog linked me another commercial that covers racism /and/ sexism but has the same feel as what i am trying to suggest only with less subtlety;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojFg9...layer_embedded

[Belial]

That one, is a ridiculous commercial.
wow

[littl3chocobo]

yeah so i dont watch tv XD

[Poggio]

It is not that he has a nice phone that makes it racist, it is the way they use stereotypes in advertising. This generalization as a way of getting business tends to lead to racism, it is saying: I know your culture, I know what you like, this is why you should buy our product. It shows the masses of the world that hay this is what this one group of people like, and this is how they must act. In the same what it may not appear offensive but imagine a commercial with middle class children of a different race. Or a different celebrity.

[littl3chocobo]

this is why pog should talk for me, she says what i want to say in a manner that makes sense

[Poggio]

XD its only because pog reads things like MS magazine and listens to her parents rant and well since I am smart enough to make my own informed arguments I do. I like thinking and research.

[Lucid:]

Okay so here's the thing. Not every commercial has to have a lot of dialogue. In my opinion, more dialogue would have ruined the spot. It would have muddled the message and confused the viewer. The idea is to sell the smartphone and the commercial is doing that by showing how having the smartphone will connect you with your friends and family. Since you can talk on any normal phone, the strategy is to show off the images, the screen, the capabilities, and the fact that your friends will all be looking over your shoulder. That is much easier done with minimal conversation. I think it is a smart advertisement and there is nothing racist about it at all.

[Kristien]

I don't see how it's at all racist.. He's in a barbershop, yes, but there are other ethnicities even in the group surrounding him laughing at the image he shows on his fancy phone. The fact that he's sharing sports is likely due to the fact that that is a sports celebrity guy (I don't watch sports so I'm not positive but I am pretty sure) and from my experience the brief and repeated words thing seems to be the way that guys talk with each other lately..
I don't really see how this is at all racist. Maybe a bit sexist, with the "guy-talk" and sports and a barbershop and stuff.. but not racist.

[Hikori]

I believe this fits into confirmation bias (or rather, since i'm using the term incorrectly, you see what you wanna see) Not that you're actively seeking racism in ads, but your culture and that culture seem worlds apart. There is a section of thing where you simply need to know how a culture operates, and you're not fully able to do so without at one point in life being part of said culture.

the long version is what matters to lebron james, yes. and the short version has been altered to be more of a community thing. Does that equate to racism? no, no it doesn't. once again, like someone said, it'd be racist if they actively sought the opposite of racism to find that TOKEN person of each ethnicity to give a misleading view of reality, just as it'd be racist if they actively did the opposite. Now the question is: did they? no. They sought out a single culture and filmed it in a mostly documentary style feel. it's not racist it's honest.

Racist would be that kfc comerical with the guy dancing to chicken.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nye0RoUB3U (please note... every time i see/share this i have to have the guile theme... sorry)

[SinX_franz]

there's nothing racists about the vid. it's just the same old ads using famous people to attract more buyers.

and yeah i do't think accidental racism exists. usually no you always mean it.