Toon Zone Talkback - Animated Talking Pandas Ad Pulled Over Complaints of Racial Stereotyping

Good,too many anthropomorphic animals anyway.

Isn't there a talking Panda in that Yahoo,Yo show with those two rabbits that look like Babs and Buster from Looney Tones only they do karate or something.
 
First of all, it?s ?Yin Yang Yo!?. Second of all, what does that have to do with this? Just because the commercial used a panda doesn?t mean it?s connected with other things that have used a panda.
 
The video is viewable at the article that's linked in the News posting. It's not horrifically offensive, but it ain't flattering, either. If there's anything that annoys me more about it, it's that it's obviously some non-Chinese actor doing a fake Chinese accent.

Of course, that doesn't explain why characters like Chico Marx or Apu on The Simpsons don't bother me (OK, Apu bugs me a teeny, tiny, little bit on a conceptual level), although I suspect the Rule of Funny is at work there.

-- Ed
 
Eh, I suppose it was somewhat racy with the main character being a panda and with a (phony) Chinese accent, but most of the jokes were basically bear-related, like chewing on the furniture. I guess this being a Superbowl commercial was the only reason it attracted this kind of attention, otherwise it would have likely gone more unnoticed.

The Indian man is a bit strange, since the only thing remotely off-putting is his phony accent.

Hmm.. After reading the article, that Budweiser Ad probably IS more offensive.
http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=64f14eba89f2716505388fed1c7df032ada234d7
 
..That was offensive? Both of them were? i'm sorry, but years of seeing terrible negative stereotypes on cartoons of the 40's-70's (and having watched an episode of the New Adventures of Lucky Luke called "Liki Liki" last night-which, I admit even had me blushing, and it was made in 2001), that didn't even seem mildly offensive. I didn't see a single stereotype. Has it come down to the part where people are offended by accents now? And not even burlesque ones?

And was the offensive thing about the Indian ad the fact that the guy had 7 kids? While I can't blame both anitdeformation leagues for being a little offended, I've seen far far far worse, and often times those things are acceptable. Apu on the Simpsons is a trillion times worse than that Indian guy.

I will say, for flash animation on both counts, both ads looked well animated. Even better than the E-surance ones. Other than that, nothing truely remarkable.
 
I think it's offensive to Asians the same way something like a blackface type thing would be to me. I'm probably biased because my girlfriend is korean, but she saw the thing with me during the game and she rolled her eyes as soon as the voice and oriental style music played.
 
Understandable, but I think it's still the mildest form of racism I've seen in a while. It's a huge step from the bucktooth and "R L" speach confusion exaggeration in really bad stereotypes that plauged quite a few cartoons in the 1960's. Hoo boy. Watch a cartoon from the 60's. It seemed like Making fun of Asians (and Mexicans) was increadably in fashion those days. Check out a Mr. Magoo or a Mighty Heroes for example. Ouch!
 
I think your problem is your basis for comparison. I mean, back in the 60's, it was still acceptable to call a black man several terms that would probably get censored today. This may be true, but so what? We don't live in the 60's.

Besides, nobody's saying that this is going to end the world or cause lynchings or anything. In fact, I never heard of this ad OR any kind of outcry about it until I read the article saying the thing was going to be pulled. Honestly, I don't think it has escaped the notice of the Salesgenie.com guy that playing up a controversy puts his ads and his name in front of more people. He is a salesman, after all.

But now that I know about the ad, does it cheese me off? Yeah, it does. There's a really fine line between talking funny and making fun of an accent, and I think these ads edge into the latter category.

It bugs me. This is a declaration of fact, and about all I can bring myself to say about it. Honestly, what bugs me more is the Salesgenie.com's rotten excuse of, "People make fun of my accent all the time and I don't get offended." Well, bully rah-rah for you, but maybe you should a little bit.

Also, read the original article. He explicitly said he wasn't getting much flak over the Ramesh ad, and it was going to stay in rotation. If I had to guess, nobody's mad at that one because Ramesh doesn't say much in the ad at all, and his accent sounds more like an actual Indian or South Asian person to me. Doesn't explain fully to my satisfaction, but it's the best I can come up with considering how little concern I actually have over these ads.

-- Ed
 
You do have a point, of course. I mean, they were right to pull the ad and everything, and the Anti-defamation leagues were right in complaining.

But here's the real question... when does an accent go from being a part of a character to outright offensive? And how far are we from the bland characters that have no personality or distinguishing traits, further making non-white characters tokens? This is a moral question that keeps cartoonists up at night.

So I'm not saying people shouldn't be upset by any means. Though, I will say, they did help the company get more press, inadvertantly, of course.

Makes me wonder... Indian Stereotype, Chinese stereotype... Is someone over their afraid that we're no longer an economic superpower, and trying somehow to rant about that?
 
You just hit on the dilemma I alluded to in my first response, which I call the "Chico Marx Effect." I love Chico Marx and I hate Charlie Chan, and I have no satisfactory rational explanation for how that can be because conceptually, they are both doing exactly the same thing. Chico and Charlie are both people putting on makeup and affecting an exaggerated accent, mostly for a cheap laugh. I don't think either one had malicious intent in mind. And yet I like one and not the other.

The easiest explanation is, "Chico Marx doesn't look like me and Charlie Chan does," and in all honesty, I can't completely rule that out as the root reason. However, there are characters like Amy's parents on Futurama or "Miss Chinglish" in the Black Lagoon anime who are much closer to Charlie Chan than Chico Marx, but I think they're both hilarious. I may also have a conceptual issue with Phil LaMarr voicing Samurai Jack, but his voice (and the light accent he lends to it) has never once affected my enjoyment of the show.

Besides, if a character is a fully realized, interesting character in his or her own right and happens to be non-white, then I'd say they're not a token character even if they are the only representatives of their race in the cast. To me, a token character is a character whose one and only purpose is to be "the black one" or "the Chinese one." Everything they say and do is tied to being black or Chinese or whatever. Even though someone like Wade on Kim Possible is the one of two black people in the regular cast, I still wouldn't call him a token. He's a fun character to do stuff with that happens to be black, but he doesn't get any special treatment, good or bad, because of his race.

A boring character is a boring character no matter what color they are, just as a good character is a good character no matter what color they are. I also think that your question has the implicit idea that you have to use race as an explicit or integral part of a character to make them interesting, and I don't think that's true. If anything, I think that's how you end up with token characters on shows.



I find it a bit more likely to call it an attempt, however misguided, to acknowledge that Chinese and Indian people are entering the American professional workforce in greater numbers.

-- Ed
 
Both commericlas were just bad from a marketing standpoint. The offensiveness was just an added bonus.

But I liked Napoleon driving through Paris streets with his GPS, so maybe I'm not the best judge. (The song was catchy)
 
i saw bits and pieces of that commercial, and it looked like crap. Also: Being pulled? They still air the Sales Genie Super Bowl ads? whatever: I just hope they never show the CareerBuilder ad with the heart coming out of the woman's body again.
 
I didn't think the Bud one was offensive (I didn't think it was FUNNY either, it was just stupid) but I happened to see the salesgenie one (I don't watch sports, I was just getting ready for work while OTHERS were watching it) and thought to myself "Yeah, that's gonna go over well."
 
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