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An advertisement for Gorenjka’s "diet chocolate."
I’m trying to imagine U.S. chocolate makers like Hershey’s or Mars, Inc. releasing a commerical like the one above by Gorenjka. And I can’t. I really, really can’t.
In
the U.S., commercials that deal even tangentially with race have to be
excessively careful. Some companies have learned this the hard way,
like Toyota (which ran, and then regretted running, a commercial for an RAV4 on the tooth of a smiling black man) and Just for Feet, whose tasteless $7-million "running Kenyan" superbowl commercial helped knock it from rising corporate success to down-and-out bankruptcy.
In Slovenia, with a population that is overwhelmingly white, such concerns are disregarded.
(Thanks KaÄ?a!)
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Here in Bulgaria, there are "Negurche" cookies, wich are chocolate coated Nilla wafer things. There’s a cartoon of your typical African boy in tribal clothing on the front of the box. That’s just about the strangest racial thing I’ve seen here.
Bwahahaha!From the looks of it, the commercial is promoting a diet high-protein shake, not chocolate.
Remember the sun block commercial with 5 or 6 asses in
thongs? That’s all it was, just a bunch of female behinds next to each
other. The catchphrase was "Vsaka ima svoj faktor". That one stirred up
some dust.http://www.gape.org/sasa/lecture202.htm
http://www.unb.br/ics/dan/Serie254empdf.pdf
I fail to see the controversial aspect of the Toyota RAV4 ad? What negative stereotypes does that one come up with?
The other one mentioned in the article - “Unlike your last boyfriend, it goes to work in the morning.” could be considered problematic outside the intended target audience but it’s still amusing.
Regarding Gorenjka ad… they can take a shot of my 6 pack to promote white (diet) chocolate any day
PC bs is ridiculous…
Is that guy staring at his schlong? And is the advertised chocolate bar supposed to resemble it?
JJ: The RAV4 ad was alluding to the ridiculous propensity of black people to wear bling bling on their teeth. Kninja: Yeah,
that’s what I meant with the protein shake comment. Looks like there
might be someone sucking on the meat straw down there.
Gorenjka’s going down..
Funny, a couple of weeks ago there was an icecream commercial here
in Sweden that caused a bit of fuss because the icecream was called
"Nogger black" and the name was written with graffiti-style letters on
the commercial poster. The icecream company was sued by something
called "centre against racism", who claimed that Nogger was an obvious
reference to "n*gger" (sorry, I didn’t want to type it, but I think you
know what I mean). What they seemed to have forgotten, however, is that
an icecream called just "Nogger" has been around for many years, and is
called like that because it’s made of nougat. The new icecream is
liquorice-flavoured and therefore black in colour. Obviously, most
people would never have made any connection to black PEOPLE from the
icecream, but some people must have way too much time on their hands. I
don’t think that Gorenjka ad would be very popular here though. Oh, the ad and a story (in Swedish) can be found here:
www.aftonbladet.se/vss/nyheter/story/0,2789,631018,00.html
If anyone looks at a commercial at any given time anyone can take a
commercial out of context and lable the commercial as "racist",
"sexist", or just plain ingnorant. To those that have a brain just sit
back in the easy chair and enjoy the retarded images that splash across
the screen and laugh because at least on person in the world will find
it offensive and those are the people we are laughing at.
Pat has got to be the most centsable person on this page, sad thing is the fool can’t spell!! I think you may have meant one. hahaha!carma is a bitch for everyone, not just on person!!
Dude. Karen. Honestly, don’t be a hypocrit. You were laughing at Pat
’cause he couldn’t spell. Well, I’m sorry hun, but I’ve got news for
you. NEITHER CAN YOU! It’s ’sensible’ and ‘karma’. Just wanted to
advise you.
Lucy! It’s "hypocrite"!
I cant say that I see any derogatory issues with either commercial
spoken about above.. The very idea that people would be so …oh I dont
know.. wearing their hearts on their sleaves and looking for a reason
to start some bs fight… just absolutely stupid. It just shows how
pathetically sensitive to every kind of perceived offense people are
becoming in this country. Simple jovial, or innocuous words, and ideas
are being taken to cause divisions and political advantage to no good
end of any of us.
Interesting. I thought black people had darker skin, similar to the color of chocolate. White people, on the other hand, have lighter skin. Now what, exactly, is derogatory about that?Would people cry foul over a redhead selling a red car? "Racism" implies negative intent. This ad has none.
I think the real punch line here is that he seems to be looking down at his chocolate banana.Like M&Ms…melts in your mouth, not in your hands.
Karen; uhm, not that I care about stupid remakrs like that, but what exactly did I spell wrong that you think is so funny?
haha, that’s REMARKS by the way. geez.
Oh, I see it now. You were referring to Patrick’s post. Just wanted to point out that we are not the same person. (Sorry for the ‘comment-spamming’)
I think that this ad is more offensive to those who never thought that they might be attracted to a black man. Or to those who never invisioned their daughter being attacted to a black man. These people do not want to equate the sesation of enjoying chocolate to the sensations one can find with a black man.
I definatly think that they should use this as a chocolate commercial, I would DEFINATLY buy that chocolate. RAcism crap gets on my nerves. sell candy by using a sexy black man is awsome.
That’s some pretty sloppy airbrushing on the abs.
I guess it’s all in what you want to see… My very first thought on seeing the ad was, "Yum… Where can I buy some?" Given a moment to cool down and analyze, I didn’t leap to the man’s race, but his body - i.e., "Our product will help you look this good!" It wasn’t until I started reading the blog text that it even occurred to me that there might be racial connotations, here.
Concerning the airbrushing and the staring at schlong comments: I have a slight feeling that the sentiment is that he’s looking at his abs, which are shaped like a choclate bar. Those aren’t human abs.And ummm… I didn’t think it was racist till I thought of that, now I’m thinking it might be a bit iffy. The RAV4 one I’m okay with, and the running shoe one could’ve been okay if they had done it right.
I think his abs have been airbrushed to resemble a chocolate bar.
hello from slovenia…i guess we are just a way more relaxed about
black people than americans…the guy sure looks tasty, and that is the
point, if you fail to see it…i never actually paid much notice to the
color of his skin…the commercial was not intended to insult or
whaterev the black people…i think no one looked at it that way..so
who is being a racist? to me a guy is a guy..
And here’s a comment from a slovene black guy. I think that it’s completely stupid to call anything not made with that specific intent racist, sexist or whatever. I don’t find it insulting the least, although one could debate for days about it implying that blacks are still just like a product to be sold blah blah. just buy the bloody chocolate and njoy it! And the same goes for all the stuff that uses women as models. Geez!