It's truly amazing to me how many products and agencies consider mocking black people a legitimate concept. Just pull any random meme from black culture; dance, rap music, blues, R&B, language, slang or fashion. Add one hapless white person pretending to be clueless, mix liberally with blank stares and forced irony and you got a real crowd pleaser. Snoop Dogg and Pharrell Williams on just about anything can't hurt you these days. Let the goof-fest begin. And as always there's that predictable call-back that brings you yet another clueless victim attempting to get his black culture vulture game up while getting it all wrong. This is always to say, " now look you guys, this joke is really on us, were the dumb guys here. Not black people."
bell hooks would have a little cultural criticism to help you understand what maybe going on here. But all that being said, it's a little cute. As far as advertising goes these days, this commercial may even reach the holy grail of today: VIRAL (cue choral crescendo and neon dollar signs). Cool by proximity & misplaced cultural cues have offered an endless well of commercial and comedic gold! Lest we forget the lesson of one 'Swagger Wagon' and 'Evian skating babies.' This kinda thing is Youtube video gold. It's been online for a few days and the commercial has earned over 200K hits. There's also a following of parodies cropping up. This is a great example of repackaging and reselling culture.
Shouts to Fat Man Scoop on voice-over.
cred:
I ron't row?
P.S. see the AFLAC duck bust a move after the break.
5 comments:
Good stuff.
I was just complaining about the end of the commercial for MARS NEEDS MOMS with the little robot breakdancing.
I'm tired of mainstream culture using it like its NEW. The "spinning into the B boy pose" is old now, and making cartoon white kids, robots, animals, or toys do it doesn't make it funny.
and now the AFLAC duck does it too?? sigh..they just don't get it
It's a thin line between acknowledgement and mockery. They still don't get it right and I cringe every time I see commercials like these.
*does the running man back to work*
Stan, CS, It is a thin line. But you see what CS did right there weighed in objectively and then, signed off with wit. (very funny btw). It's that type of intelligence and knowledge of codes that are so often missing from these commercials.
This ad simply is not exciting, fresh, or interesting to the discerning marketing eye. But, as the blog post mentioned, its YouTube gold. I chuckled, then said...eh. i wouldn't have approved it. but more-so cause the song is like 4 or 5 years old at this point. yikes.
I'd like it even less if it was black people dancing everytime they pick up a SunDrop.
Dez
*does the running man back to work*
Sir, you owe me a new keyboard. I lol'd.
As for the song being 4 or 5 years old, SWPL has this topic covered.
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