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8 Racist Ads You Won't Believe Are From the Last Few Years

By Mark Hill Nov 03, 2009 839,661 views
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In the Golden Age of Advertising, producing commercials was easy. You could pretty much toss in any horrific stereotype you thought would help sell your product, and if any minorities complained, who cares? Minorities aren't the majority, duh.

Of course, in this era of political correctness, those clumsy, cringe-worthy stereotypes are a thing of the past.

Well, almost...

#8.
Pond's White Beauty (2008)

When you watch this schmaltzy ad, you slowly come to the realization that the theme is, "If your epidermis isn't white enough, the man of your dreams will never love you."

Oh, we're not reading too much into it--Pond's White Beauty is an Indian line of skin whitener.


I'm sorry, you're just too brown.


Hey, is that my ex?


Is she still brown?

So, although the ex-boyfriend in the ad eye-fucks the living shit out of his lost love, he just can't get over her icky brownness, even if she's portrayed by former Miss World Priyanka Chopra.


Upon removing my sunglasses, I see that she is still too brown. Gross.

Over the ad's next four installments (yes, it's a five-part skin whitener epic) the girl wins her man back thanks to her brand new pallor. Well, that and his new girlfriend was a total bitch, but it's mostly the melanin thing. We'd like to think the antagonist tries to win him back by whitening her skin even more, and the two women end up bleaching back and forth until they both look like yetis.


The ideal beauty.

#7.
Coloreria Italiana (2006)

Taking the above to the opposite extreme, in the world of Italian laundry products, myths about black men's ravenous libidos are still alive and banging:

The ad opens with a woman doing her laundry. Her scrawny, white husband walks by and tries to seduce her.


"You want-a make-a the sex?"

She rejects him by shoving him into an improbably spacious washer.

After her hubby drowns in detergent, she opens the machine, only to have a buff black man emerge as hip-hop blasts from the heavens.

And lest you think we're stretching things here a bit, here's the sequel.

This time it's the husband who commits violent washing machine homicide...


Oh, how the tables have turned.

...but his scheme to replace his wife with a nice Afro-Italian babe backfires when the same sexy black dude pops up, foreshadowing some non-consensual, man-on-man interracial ramrodding.


Oh how the tables have turned... gay.

Stay classy, Italy!

#6.
Salesgenie.com (2008)

Let's go to America now, where Salesgenie.com is a database marketing service. That ranks just above surgery-grade gynecological equipment on your average TV viewer's list of impulse buys, so Salesgenie clearly needs a whiz-bang ad to draw in new customers.

Their ad starts off well. Animated pandas are trying to sell bamboo furniture. It makes perfectly tenuous sense so far...

...but then Ching-Ching and Ling-Ling start talking like goddamn Fu Manchu and we're left wondering what small-town CEO green-lit this commercial.


Herro prease.

Did we say small-town CEO? Whoops. This ad aired during Super Bowl XLIII. This means a group of high-priced ad execs got together and decided that $2.7 million dollars worth of ad time was best spent on third-rate Charlie Chan impressions.


How Salesgenie apparently views Asia.

Shockingly, some of the 97.5 million people who saw this commercial were offended, and Salesgenie quickly yanked it.

#5.
"Who Hasn't?" (2006)

The 2006 Tennessee Senate race was fought between Republican Bob Corker and Democrat Harold Ford, who was en route to become Tennessee's first black Senator.


Honestly, he looks like kind of a badass.

With Ford ahead by a slim margin, the Republican Party had only one option: produce a thoughtful TV spot that rationally explained why Corker was the better candid- oh, who are we kidding? The RNC punched out an attack ad invoking the boogeyman of miscegenation.

Here we see a white, helium-voiced "Playboy Bunny" insinuate that she had unnatural relations with the black Mr. Ford.

The ad was considered so sleazy that even Bob Corker asked it be pulled off the air as pundits nationwide accused him of race-baiting.

It's worth noting that the whole Playboy bunny thing was a reference to the fact that Ford had attended a 2005 Playboy-sponsored Super Bowl party in Florida. He justified it with a awesomely candid quip: "I like football and I like girls. I have no apologies for that."


This is the least pimpingest picture we could find of Ford.

Tennessee voters were so outraged by the ad campaign that the white Bob Corker shot up several points in the polls and won a narrow victory. At the end of the day, everyone learned a valuable lesson about race-baiting smear tactics: they fucking work.

Black ASian white tiger hindu bear from mexico

11/16/2009 06:29:28 PM
decepticonale

...would someone mind telling me how in the HELL #5 is "racist"? It's an attack ad that makes the case that Ford doesn't share the values of his gun-toting, bible-thumping, idiot constituents (trying to meet you on your level here...), and apparently the ad makers were right! Harold Ford unapologetically hung out with the good people at Playboy, and that's something that many conservative Americans have a problem with, no matter how "badass" it may be to others. If anything, this attack ad is making the case that he's a womanizer, and therefore part of a proud tradition of womanizing in the Democratic party. HOW IN THE HELL IS THAT RACE-BAITING? Must EVERY charge leveled against a black politician be called racist, no matter how idiotic or disconnected? Oh yes, and THEN the article makes the connection between this one "racist" attack ad and Ford's narrow defeat, making that classic leap from correlation to causation. The writer then take these disparate bits of information and implies that Ford was DEFEATED BY RACISM, when there isn't even any racism to be found in the first place! This is one of the most bizarre examples of anti-logic I've seen in a long time... Come on Cracked...you're a humor website, and your writer's obvious political slant here prevented you from being funny. Isn't that, you know, your POINT? This section of an otherwise decent article was just vitrioloc and ugly. If I want half-assed, bitter politics, I'll read somewhere else. You're welcome to your bias, but could you at least stick to reasonable claims and things that are, you know, humorous? Oh, and about the cute little Obama Google thing at the end there....again, can someone PLEASE tell me how "birth certificate", "approval rating", "jokes", or "deception" are examples of RACE-BAITING?? Good lord....

11/12/2009 02:26:25 PM
BWareFL

Yeah, the 'Coon' cheese thing was just a comment made by a UK comedian Stephen K Amos who came to Australia :P It's actually named after American creator Edward Coon...who discovered the cooning process...I'm sorry, just saying that word continuously, despite it's harmless connotations, still makes me uncomfortable.

11/10/2009 09:56:45 PM
ByzGirl

To the people claiming the skin bleaching commercial is not racist, because people all over the world bleach their skin: yes, it's racist. The commercial implies that if you have darker skin, your man will not love you, and you're worthless. People bleach their skin and use large umbrellas in China, because they're racists. They believe white skin is more beautiful than black skin, and have sayings about how if you're black on the outside, that also means you're "black on the inside." I live here, and I love China, but too many Chinese people are racists. They look down upon ethnic minorities and other races with darker skin, and someone who's darker will often have problems just leading a normal life without ugly remarks from strangers, being discriminated against, and so forth. Thus you get skin bleaching. You can't compair it to being skinny/ heavy, because that's usually a matter of choice and lifestyle, whereas skin colour is a matter of genes, and doesn't have anything to do with what kind of person you are.

11/10/2009 09:04:25 PM
Huldren

the panda thing was painful to watch and made me feel awkward

11/10/2009 01:36:56 PM
arbitrary

In spite of the apparent progression of many humans of all ethnicities/hues/etc that defy stereotypes on a daily basis, some of the posters here are hell bent on holding onto all things negative about certain people. It seems to me that this is largely an ego problem (their egos needs to be "right" constantly even in the face of truth). Just look at them --they would rather throw out all sorts of biased bull$hit "statistics", isolated incidents, blanket statements, and lies rather than admit that stereotypes aren't often valid. Some people just don't know how to live other than being negative. Just give it up and admit you're wrong. xtkbilly: Enough with the ignorant blanket statements about African Americans being the most racist people you know. Really, how many blacks do you really, truly know outside your embittered observations dearheart? ;) Let's be honest, mmmkay? And, if you know anything about history and sociology, in no way can you equate racism that whites have experienced at the hands of minorities anywhere in relation to racism that minorities have experienced in past decades (and sometimes in current years) from whites. I can agree that all racism sucks and should end. But by historical comparison, the history of racism is completely unbalanced; please stop trying to make yourself seem like such a victim. It's bull$hit and so is your ego.

11/09/2009 09:25:40 PM
celinai

Some stupid people in here. There's no 'black blood' or 'white blood', we share 99.9% of the same genes with the remaining dictating skin pigmentation and individual looks etc.

11/07/2009 07:45:35 PM
satanyoka

Yikes. I think that the skin lightener was the most disconcerting.

11/06/2009 10:27:37 PM
BringMeBirdman

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11/06/2009 06:50:27 PM
kaly76hummer

Recently, I found an age-gap site called __Agegapmingle.com__ It's a nice place­ for Younger Women and Older Men, or Older Women and­ Younger Men, to interact with each other. Age gap is­ not problem there. You may check out or tell your­ friends.

11/06/2009 06:49:16 PM
kaly76hummer

Wow this dr.satan guy is a genious, racisism and athiesm all rolled into one package, pretty smart huh, except his dumbass screen name contradicts his whole comment....try changing your name. here is a suggestion,(athiest inbred white trash) thats more suitable for you.....

11/06/2009 08:37:01 AM
mr.huggs

Black people are Gods chosen burnt people. And thats why theyre all going to hell. Hahahahaha..................... but theres no god, so f**k it.

11/05/2009 04:20:31 PM
Dr.Satan

How does racism affect everyone? In fact more specifically, how does racism affect anyone anymore? I doubt that you specifically, xtkbilly, have encountered any form of racism in your lifetime. In fact, I'd say that your idea that "African-Americans" (we call them blacks now, because it is inaccurate to say that every person with dark brown skin is from Africa, and slightly presumptuous to think that even if they are from Africa that they identify at all with Africans) are the most racist of all just goes to show how little the term "racism" actually means. See if we're talking about institutional racism, the only form of racism that really affects ones socio-economic status, then it is obviously a wrongheaded statement to say that blacks are promoting racism, seeing as they have no power with which to promote it. They are prejudice, for sure, but it can be seen as somewhat necessary and understandable. I'd say that this preoccupation with racism is at best idiotic and at worst dangerous. It makes people lazy. It gives them a boogy-man. It's funny, because I hear all these atheists denounce the church and talk about how evil it is to use religion as an excuse to persecute others, and that's all I ever see it get used for. Disrespectful prejudice, violence against others, destroying the freedom of association, incivility, are they really symptoms of racism or are they causes of it? I don't know. But what I do know is that when you take such a strong chance against a position, you tend to misrepresent it and sound like a jackass. Oh by the way, as for the comment that you responded to, that person needs to take a course in statistics and then they need to take another course on debate. Correlation does not equal causation, and it has been shown time and time again that the causitive factors of black crime is due to the economic degredation of inner cities and then the subsequent failed attempts to fix that economic degredation... That, and anecdotal evidence is illogical and unverifiable, and may not necessarily be indicative of trends. From what I'm to understand, crime is falling in all areas for all races. This hardly paints the picture of anarchy and apeishness that you were trying to portray with your story.

11/05/2009 03:56:33 PM
jcaine

@ZootSuitMcGoot: I have no idea what the FUCK happened in these comments, but I must APPLAUD your recent comment! Just because some people have a darker skin tone than someone else, DOES NOT mean that they don't know the "DAILY DEGRADATION OF RACISM" as you seem to be saying. Rascism affects ANY AND EVERYONE, not just people whose skin tone is darker. And honestly, I believe the most rascist people I have ever seen are African-Americans.

11/05/2009 02:24:29 PM
xtkbilly

SayWhatNow: You have the incredible gall to make the following statement: "And no matter how angry it makes you, feeling like you have to "walk on eggshells" for fear of being called a racist will never ever have even one zillionth of the emotional impact of ACTUALLY ENDURING THE DAILY DEGRADATION OF RACISM AS A PERSON OF COLOR." I take it you've never heard of the kidnapping, rape, torture and murder of Channon Christian and Christoper Newsom and have no familiarity with the statistics on interracial crime, particularly the statistics on interracial rape. As someone who was attacked and beaten by a couple of drunken blacks who followed me for two blocks shouting things like "Come back here, you white motherf**ker, we gonna beat you ass!", who has had rocks and bottles thrown at him while walking through black neighborhoods, who has been passed over for promotion in favor of a black with less education, less experience and wasn't even a citizen, I don't give a rat's patoot about your "DAILY DEGRADATION." You need to get over the idea that whites should be endlessly preoccupied with your sensitive little feelings.

11/05/2009 12:52:53 PM
ZootSuitMcGoot

There was an advert in Belgium three or four years ago for something (it might have been Frosties, but I forget) which was totally normal and racially egalitarian until the last three seconds, where they say the name of the product (like they do at the end of every advert) and then an Indian guy wearing a turban and with massive horse teeth pops up from the bottom of the screen, and his head bobs about as he goes "Good for you, good for you!". I think that advert eventually got banned, but that might have been because Frosties aren't actually good for you.

11/05/2009 10:38:29 AM
Pedgerow

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11/05/2009 06:31:21 AM
cherry668

"Who hasn't" might be kind of a stretch. I mean, aren't smear campaigns a staple feature of U.S. election campaigning? What makes it racist? Because the "Bunny" lusting after Ford was a white blonde female?

11/05/2009 04:23:09 AM
Another1

Best comment of the round goes to Zootsuitmcgoot. Leftyism IS a religion, and a zealous and f**king annoying one at that

11/05/2009 12:02:21 AM
redjimmy

you said it right, yakasak - even if you were being sarcastic. But blacks are only too happy anyway to claim anyone of merit with 1 drop as their own. Finding a full-blooded success is slim pickings indeed.

11/04/2009 11:52:48 PM
redjimmy
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