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February 2010
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I owe a hat tip for the first video, but I’d rather not have anybody attack the original poster, I’ll omit the hat tip for now.

11 comments to YouTube Favorites

  • My favorite was the Jello commercial. I didn’t really understand the Australian commercial (not sure what he might have said).

    • “Need a tip for when you’re stuck in an awkward situation?”

      “Too easy”

      “KFC’s crowd pleaser…”

      There are two reads on this advertisement from Australia:

      Racist Read: Two white people are surrounded by blacks and offer the blacks fried chicken — a stereotypical food for African-Americans — in order to insure survival. This is offensive.

      Real Read: Two Australians are surrounded by fans for the West Indian fans while attending a cricket match. In order to insure survival, they offer the West Indian fans fried chicken from KFC. Peace ensues. This is not offensive.

      The problem is when it is viewed out of context–as far as I know, nobody in the South Pacific had any issues with this advertisement, but when it was seen on YouTube in the USA, it was declared racist and offensive. See The Huffington Post for more from the American perspective. News.com.au offers up more from the Australian perspective.

      For the record, I’m with the Australians on this one: it’s not racist. And to assume that the dark-skinned people in the advertisement are African-American is to deny them their true West Indian identity — and that’s really offensive.

  • Reko

    I would be AFRAID to walk into Gary’s Mattress store–afraid that he might be there.

  • I like the last video especially the part when he said in which planet is that woman living. LOL

  • That mattress commercial, wow… Simply WOW! I guess the idea was to be an equal opportunity offender.

    African Americans and friend food… umm.. I think that commercial should be taken in the context of where it was meant to be shown. As you and I found out when we were in Africa (and I think were told while there), there is nothing American about an African. Show to a US audience with US actors in the commercial, I can see where that could have been considered racist.

    When we did the nutrition portion of my nursing course, we were told by the instructor, the text book, etc. that white people in the south referred to friend foods as “soul food”. Umm.. no, you tell a white southern native that they are making soul food, you’re likely to get hung from the nearest tall tree.

    The Jello commercial needs to be taken in the context of the time it was made. Today it would be highly inappropriate, but in the late 50’s/early 60’s it may not have been taken in that context.

    Barney Frank – he was right. Having a conversation with the woman he was addressing would have been like arguing with a dining room table.

    My personal summation of all this is people are entirely TOO sensitive these days. I’m sorry, but once in a while someone is going to hear something that offends them. Is it right? perhaps not, but move one people!

  • Pseudo Wife

    Adam, your insights on the Australian KFC commerical were super interesting. I agree that it works for Austrialia but definetely not transferable to, say ATL 🙂

    PS-wow on the comments regarding the misogyny posts–wow.

  • RealHusband

    I hate to rain on anyone’s parade, but I really think the first commercial is a parody. It just seems too “stereotypically” racist if that makes any sense; like he’s trying to make fun of that kind of commercial.

  • Jerry Faust

    I can’t get over the stupidity and ignorance of the woman who confronted Barney Frank: by her “logic”, most of the world’s Western democracies (including Israel) are ‘Nazi’.

  • Any insights on why the comments I made above changed “fried” to “friend”? I could see my making the typo once, but twice seems unlikely. I suppose anything is possible…

    • I hate to tell you that unless WordPress has some undocumented feature called change fried to friend, you made the typo twice.

      You should see the number of times I misspelled misogyny in the last week. That would be entertaining!