8 Racist Ads You Won't Believe Are From the Last Few Years
#4.
Vitaminwater (2007)
In this ad, Red Sox star David Ortiz and Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher destroy a pair of Asian badminton players, "Yang" and "Lau," thanks to a steady supply of questionably healthy sugar water.
"Eat it Yang, or Lau. Whatever, they all look the same." - Vitaminwater
It doesn't seem so weird... until you realize the Asian guys aren't played by a couple of random actors--they're American Olympian badminton players, Howard Bach and Bob Malaythong. So why the hell were they called Yang and Lau? Were "Howard" and "Bob" too hard to pronounce?
The ad was supposed to generate exposure for badminton prior to the 2008 Olympics. If Vitaminwater was trying to publicize under appreciated athletes, it might have been a smidge more effective to actually tell viewers the players' names instead of giving them names more appropriate for prank calling a Chinese food restaurant.
USA! USA! USA!
#3 and #2.
Intel (2007) and Microsoft (2009)
...the Internet was quick to point out that the ad featured six black men bowing down to a nerdy white guy. Well, technically it's just one black sprinter who's been lazily Photoshopped six times, but that's sort of worse.
The ad is a metaphor for how Intel's new processors are super fast and make employees way more efficient, but whoever designed the ad has apparently never seen a 100 meter dash before. Instead of sending a message of lightning fast efficiency, we see what's about to be a hilarious pile of concussed sprinters the second the starters pistol goes off.
Still, Intel's gaffe pales in comparison to the whitewashing Microsoft gave a black board member on the Polish version of their website...
Seriously, Microsoft? You're a multi-billion dollar computing conglomerate and you couldn't figure out how to Photoshop one damn hand?
#1.
Kia-Ora Orange Drink (1980s)
Now this UK ad does go back a few years (mid-80s) but holy shit, these 40 seconds of insanity make the brain-trusts behind our previous ads look like NAACP Image Award nominees:
If this weren't in color, we would've guessed that it was made around 1950. The other ads we've looked at just had one or two poorly chosen elements, but this is a literal parade of racial stereotypes.
No, seriously. A parade.
The ad is what Uncle Remus's fever hallucinations look like. It's what Aunt Jemima sees when she drops peyote. It is not a viewing experience that makes us thirsty for some orange drink.
We've start with some jive-talking crows, something that was already offensive when Dumbo used it in 1941, and we only regress from there. Follow along as they run through all the harmful black stereotypes from our embarrassing century. There's ...
... a mammy ...
...Sunflower from Fantasia, and finally ...
... the basketball-playing crow.
Hey, but at least they resisted the urge to make the next word out of the sax "watermelon."
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Gotta love it when Cracked does its occasional politically correct article, I see male hip hop artists down playing the " hypersexualized black male" myth all the time...
ReplyAh yes. Good to see that you gather your information from hip-hop artists. They would be the best real-world examples of black males.
That last video WILL give me nightmares
ReplyYou didn't mention the worst part of the panda ad. At the end, the panda dad asks his panda kids if they want to go see the grizzly bears at the zoo. Since pandas are also bears, does that mean the family is about to go see the slave exhibit?
Replythat intel/microsoft thing is modern racism bs. I mean seriously, i dont see a BLACK man bowing before a WHITE man, i see what i would think is a professional runner...and we all know a black man holds the record. so if it's true a BLACK man is the fastest man, and intel processors are fast, whats the issue? Comcast did the same thing, except running vs a rocket car(speed boost ads). the only racism here is the racist people who call it so. thats like judas being black in 1970s jesus christ super star and then later calling the 2000s one racist cause he is white...
Replyold american(20s n such) ads are so funny, even tho racist lol
I totally loved the italian commercials, although it really sucks for that italian man to get a black man out of the washer, when he clearly wanted a black woman. :/ As a lover of Italians, I'd try and fix that. But thank you for pointing out both types of racism: The negative and "positive" stereotypical traits.
ReplyI'm kinda surprised by the lack of the Groupon ad that ran during the Superbowl about Tibetans.
ReplyI've heard before that some think the new Kia ads are racist too, because they equate black culture to hamsters, IE rodents, and were quite offended by the racism.
ReplyI never got why they were hamsters..It made me sad that they made such cute little fuzzy things kinda scary-giant and anooying
Ah, the lingering aftereffects of British Imperialism...
ReplyAnyway, Im thinking that #4 isn't racist. The badminton one was probably trying to showcase the fast-paced, physical nature of the sport, while trying to appeal to fans of already well-established celebrity athletes, probably not "publicize [any particular] under appreciated athletes."
My probably-typical knowledge of the sport sorta remembers that dominant players tend to come from Asia, so I can see the logic behind the Asian sounding names, and why not have them played by the two best American players? It'd probably be a bit depressing to portray America's hope for a good medal being out-agiled by a couple of musclebound sugarheads.
A more logical ad would've been "random dude has Vitamin Water and strikes out Ortiz, or stiffarms Urlacher," but no one knows anything about badminton or its best athletes, so you do what you can.
Does the commercial make an immediate impact? Yeah. If you then think about it for about 5 seconds, do you realize that it doesn't make a lot of sense and could've been done better? Yeah. Is it racist? No.
Was gonna say #3 was just an unfortunate accident, til I realized it would've been a lot more effective without a schlubby white dude standing in the middle of it. Someone did that on purpose, or an entire ad firm is dumb.
Sorry for my rant, it's been a rough week.
everyone loved the Kia-ora ad. "Too orangey for crows" people went around saying it all the time.
Replydid that post
ReplyHow exactly is the skin whitener ad racist? It is made byIndians. It's the same here in Hong Kong and all over Asia: pale skin is a sign of class and beauty and is much desired, just as tanned skin is in the West. It's a caseof wanting what you haven't got, I reckon. The first thing any Chinese person said to me was "Oh, ho leng, very beautiful, white skin" this was when I had just arrived and my skin was chalky and all the Westerners were encouraging me to sunbathe and "get rid of that awful English pallor". It was the same in Thailand and every where. Are ads for self-tanner racist?
ReplyI don't know what's more upsetting - this comment or how many thumbs up it's received.
JPeaslee: Fiona's saying it's a simple culture difference. It's just like how millions of American women spend ridiculous amounts of money at tanning salons/spray tans and self-tanning lotion.
Classism/Racism/Colorism - all different things which everyone thinks are the same.
ReplyAnd xenophobia, too.
I mean the Italians at least agreed colored was better.
Replyso its only racist when it is against non white people?
this is coming from a non white person
Alright, the badminton one just really reek of racism. It's not racist to say "China is a place" or have Asian-looking men playing Chinese people. That's the same thing as having Hugh Laurie play an American on house because he's white and so are most Americans. Are they really supposed to be Chinese men named "Bob" and "Howard?" They aren't acting as themselves, obviously.
ReplyPardon: *doesn't reek
Um, I thought they were American- wasn't there USA on the back of their shirts?
The thing about the Ki-Ora ad is that it is effective. I won't be getting that damn jingle out of my head soon.
Replyupdate your video links, it's getting annoying.
Reply#1 shouldn't even make this list because it's not from the last few years. If you're writing an article about racist ads from the last few years, the limit is 11 years since you wrote about an ad from 2000.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesThe article was made in 2009.
@Gariandos The KiaOra advert is from the 80s.
Who made this rule about year limits?
yea, it's a little older, but I think they mean there is a shockingly large amount of racism for the time
I don't see how #7 is racist.
Replyok, you REALLY had to read into #5 to make it racist. which you did. it WAS a smear campaign, but it wasn't racially based. i know how much Cracked loves bashing anyone who doesn't agree with them politically, religiously or ideologically, but it's getting ridiculous.
ReplyIt was the viewers who thought it was racist. Can you imagine the outrage if, say, Rick Perry ran a smear campaign against Obama for the 2012 election, with the logo, "He's just not right"? Not "he's not right for our country", or "not right for the office", literally "just not right". We're talking about the same people who bugged out when Barnes & Noble bookshelves featured a book about monkeys next to a book about the president. Still think it's a stretch?
I still think it was a bit of a stretch. I think the problem is that he made a capaign that came out rather awkwardly.
It will be a loooong time till people here in my country realize that #8 is closet racist.
ReplyI don't know what country you're from, but colorism is definitely an issue in the US today as well - it's just not discussed out in the open often, because we're used to describing race as "white vs. black." Within certain communities (I know it's true for some Indian-Americans, but I've also personally heard of it from some African-Americans and Hispanics) lighter skin is viewed as something one should aspire towards - whether that means marrying lighter skinned people so your daughter will be "pretty," or using often untested and potential dangerous skin bleaching products. And although the term colorism is often used to describe this tendency within a particular ethnicity, there is also the question of whether say Beyonce or Obama would have been so successful if they had darker skin.
I guess what I'm saying is it's a tough topic anywhere, including the US, even if it doesn't get discussed much.