----- Advertising Blunders -----
Racist or not? **
EVERYTIME I see a dumb, slapyourforehead ad or commercial, I always blurt out, "seriously? Who was in that office meeting and said yes to this?" EVERYTIME. Somebody at Nivea did. Because this ad happened. "Look Like You Gave A Damn" is the oil being added to the already burning house. I get it; they're selling grooming products to help clean up unruly American males, but Afro hair means improper? Words should have been chosen carefully, and the head could have been used differently.
Could we have become a society where we judge too quickly and rebuke too apprehensively? Maybe it was an innocent idea, or unthoughtful idea. Overlooked? We could say humans feed power to the insult, and are too sensitive. If it was a depicted as a white male holding an unruly white male's head, would it have been a different outcome? Surely. I feel it's all in all a bad combination of everything: idea, choice of words and image. That's one thing, do we blame it on the person who said yes in the meeting, or the creatives who put this together and didn't have enough sense or courage to speak up and stop, or question? Some would say that it is not fair anymore, that we have to work on our tippy toes in fear that we might pass off racist ideas once ethnicity is involved, preventing multiculturalism from progressing; we control our own civilization. Maybe one day, race wouldn't be a problem, and things like this will be seen with neutral eyes and overlooked, with no intention of hurting or insulting. Designers are not paid to simply create, they are required to research as well, in this case, they did not research enough.
Could we have become a society where we judge too quickly and rebuke too apprehensively? Maybe it was an innocent idea, or unthoughtful idea. Overlooked? We could say humans feed power to the insult, and are too sensitive. If it was a depicted as a white male holding an unruly white male's head, would it have been a different outcome? Surely. I feel it's all in all a bad combination of everything: idea, choice of words and image. That's one thing, do we blame it on the person who said yes in the meeting, or the creatives who put this together and didn't have enough sense or courage to speak up and stop, or question? Some would say that it is not fair anymore, that we have to work on our tippy toes in fear that we might pass off racist ideas once ethnicity is involved, preventing multiculturalism from progressing; we control our own civilization. Maybe one day, race wouldn't be a problem, and things like this will be seen with neutral eyes and overlooked, with no intention of hurting or insulting. Designers are not paid to simply create, they are required to research as well, in this case, they did not research enough.
Here's the dealio:
** A black man is shown to be dressed well and groomed as opposed to the stereotype of Black Americans who don't and dresses "ghetto" or savaged like as depicted by the decapitated head of what appears to be an angry, Afro styled Black man. In bold text, it says "Re-civilised Yourself". Blatantly but surreptitiously implies that what he was before was uncivilized. **
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