As you probably know by now, I'm no stranger to controversy, and like speaking about the 'questionable' that exists in this world today. Not that many of you on MG care about anything that has to be read but here goes...
We see so many messages cross our eyes today, but did any of them ever make you think about the meanings behind some of the messages? For instance, what is an 'AD' saying to you, when you look at it? Are you trying to decypher what they're selling you, or what they're informing you about, or do you just blindly look at how pretty the people are? Depending on what type of person you are, you will look at the Ads and get a completely different idea from them. If you remember, I published this piece about Sony Playstation's 'racist' advertisement that they did in Europe, to promote the 'WHITE' playstation portable (check the bottom half of that write-up). Most people didn't see anything wrong with it. They saw the pretty white woman, beating up an ugly black woman (nappy hair included), there was only that 1 ad and it was saying that 'WHITE IS COMING'
.
lol So many messages, so many interpretation... so what comes to mind when you see the following? Is this RACIST? :
Seems harmless, right? What's the difference between the 2 pictures? Ok yeah language... but the most obvious? ... Now let's put the IAMDIFFERENT spin on it...
ok... seems like nothing much right? Just a meeting, some black guy, Asian guy and White woman (or Latina), are obviously the focus on the ad. It's saying to "EMPOWER YOUR PEOPLE" - empower what people? You mean Asians, Blacks and Women???? So you mean to empower the non-white-MALE 'minorities' (power/business speaking) that your company employed, for once? Who are they talking to with this Ad? Obviously a white man who controls these cminority assets. lol Empower them. - ooor is it aimed at a manager who is of one of these minority groups, telling that person to be racist/sexist and hook their own kind? This top part of the Ad is the English version of an Ad by Microsoft for their products. But what do you make up the change in the bottom Ad, that is advertised in Poland (saying the same thing in Polish)? Notice that black man is replaced with a white man- BUT NOT ENTIRELY!! lol If you look at the HANDS of the bottom ad, they forgot to change the actual hands, they just chopped off the black head and photoshopped in a white guy. So... is that racist, or just a sloppy azz photoshop job?
It's a sticky area but ultimately racist. See, over here, in the USA, the marketing is aimed as these people of the minority group who are so proud of themselves that they've made it to a corporate job where they're in the meeting... so they have purpose to serve the white man... but if you put this in Poland... well... the HUGE majority of people in Poland are of white skin, there are little to no blacks there! They don't want to see black people in their ad, Tv whatever! So to have the black guy in the office like that, well the advertising group felt that they should put a white skinned male in the picture, as opposed to a black guy. Now, you could argue that because mostly white people make up Poland's population, but then why not swap out the obvious ASIAN MAN'S HEAD for a white man too? And in that respect, when you erase a target ethnicity, in favor of a more pleasurable ethnicity, you're technically being RACIST! When you don't change EVERYONE to look more WHITE, you are being RACIST. When you cut off only the black guy's damn head, but you leave his BLACK HANDS... you're being not only racist, but very goddamn sloppy with your marketing photoshop work. lol However, it would not be racist in making a similar ad, with only white people in it, and using that in Poland instead (which wouldn't have cost that much money to mega company Micro$oft!). Lazy azz, racist, cheap people! lol At that point, you'd just be marketing to target demographic.
You got caught out there, Microsoft! The problem is this kind of stuff happens every day in Europe! Who's really there to complain?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8221896.stm
