Say the ad was filmed at a baseball game and everyone except the guy with the KFC was dancing around doing the Tomahawk Chop. Do you think regardless of what they were wearing you could work out their allegiance?
The Tomahawk Chop is pretty team specific; what are the people around him doing that is team specific?
I still think it’s racist, if not intentionally. Why did all the other audience members have to be black, if it’s about cricket? To me, it just looks like the people who made this ad wanted to be provocative or whatever but also wanted to be able to get away with this, so they’re acting as though Americans are the only ones with cultural baggage related to racism.
Steel drums, dancing, no-one else in green and gold.
They are acting like W.Indies supports at a international cricket match. Dancing, singing, drums etc.
If it was the Brits (The barmy army) they’d be much more in synch and chanting taunts and the Aussies with a band in the banckground playing the music from The Great Escape of The Dam Busters…
If it was the Irish they’d be chanting as well but singing The Fields of Athenry (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2ZpJiNJB-k)
Because when the ad was airing the West Indian cricket team was touring Australia.
By the way as soon as the Windies tour finished the ad stopped playing because it would make no sense while we were playing Pakistan.
…what colour would you expect them to be?
How were they being provocative? The only reason you’ve seen this advert is because of some student fucks on a shitty Youtube broadcast: it was an Australian advert for Australian audiences.
And why the hell wouldn’t they be black? The West Indies is one of the best known cricket teams around, with some of the best players of all time hailing from there, never mind the recent West Indian tour of Australia. Are depictions of West Indian cricket supporters now banned?
A variety of different colors. Perhaps some black, some white. It may not be intentional, but it does look like, “Let’s calm down the crazy out of control blacks with chicken.”
Others around the white guy are wearing green or green and gold.
An attempt to portray West Indian cricket supporters, using people of a variety of different colours, some white, some black?
You think that would accurately represent a typical selection of West Indian cricket supporters?
“Fried chicken”, “watermelons”, etc. etc. has no racist overtone in the Commonwealth. Like I said, you needn’t view every international advert through your nation’s own idiosyncratic stereotypes and racist slurs.
But I think the problem arises when you realize that we aren’t just producing commercials for one country. The world is so much more globalized–you do anything remotely funny or racist or whatever and it could end up on youtube.com. And it may not be your intent to be racist, but I’m sure KFC would rather not have had an ad like this out because no one wants to look racist. Even if it wasn’t the intent to be racist, you know that people are going to look at the ad and go, “Creepy, racist, etc.” Before the Internet, I think you could have gotten away with this ad–not so much now.
And no one on the video has a steel drum.
I wonder if that could have anything to do with the West Indian colors or green and red. Or perhaps the logo over the white t-shirt?
The ad is one of a series of ads that feature the same man using delicious KFC chicken to his advantage. AFAIR the other ads feature white people eating the food.
They are West Indies supporters, at a time when the West Indies were touring Australia. Making some of them white would have been patronising, and just made everyone :rolleyes:.
Except the guy playing one and the soundtrack that features them.
The guy in front has a red jersey, but a green and gold hat. Who is he rooting for?
He is not playing a steel drum. Looks like a cowbell to me. And the steel drum was obviously added to the soundtrack, so it doesn’t help to determine the team affiliations of those on camera.