Please excuse (and go ahead and close) this thread, if it has been discussed before, but if it has I must be doing something wrong with our search engine.
I haven’t seen this ad in a while and googled it and found quite a lot of angry posts calling it racist and I agree. The kid socking the butler I especially found inappropriate and offensive, so I’m glad they pulled it.
Outside of that scene, was there anything else any of you found particularly distasteful?
Thanks
Q
The ebonics.
The Truf (troof = truth for those of you who don’t speak jive)? Black people everywhere should have objected, and then kicked the collective asses of the sellouts who made a buck off a stereotype that should have been buried decades ago.
Reminded me of The Hollywood Shuffle.
My wife and I are glad it’s gone.
Damn, I managed to forget about that commercial only to have you remind me. Yes, this one also pinged my racist-dar. I don’t know why exactly. Maybe it’s just that the characters seemed like stereotypes. I don’t think I even noticed the kid hitting the butler.
I guess the one with a Russian guy is also racist then
No. I don’t get the racist angle either.
Why? He’s portraying a Russian Mafia type, not a typical Russian-American. How is that racist?
Thanks
Q
I was under the impression that the Russian guy in the commercial was an oligarch and not a mobster. (BTW, I’m fascinated that in the span of a couple of decades, the portrayal of Russia in American commercials went from this Soviet fashion show for Wendy’s to the over-the-top wealthy Russian in this DirecTV commercial.)
Then why does the Truth guy have to be portraying a typical black guy
I’m afraid you lost me, PSXer. That whole commercial is anything but typically black, IMO.
Q
You could argue that’s a stereotype, too, although it’s not a racial stereotype.
Apparently they have two commercials with Russian guys. I’ve only seen this one, with the gangster character. Here’s another one (with the same actor, I think) as a more generic rich guy.
I think both commercials sort of represent rich trash. Rich Russian trash, rich black trash. I think I’ve seen one with a rich trashy Asian guy too. Maybe next they’ll do a rich Irish trash or rich Arab trash.
Not sure how any of that is supposed to make me want whatever it is they’re advertising.
I meant I don’t see how it is racist because it is portraying a certain stereotype of black man (like the rich athlete) and not implying that that it is a typical black man, or that all black people act like that.
It is certainly not uncommon for speakers of African American Vernacular English to replace a final “th” sound with an “f”. Or as wiki puts it:
Recognizing this and putting it into a commercial isn’t necessarily racist, but it was a stupid commercial.
Every time I saw that commercial it pissed me off. I don’t care what color the kid is, showing a kid punching an adult in the stomach (and totally getting away with it) blew my mind.
I don’t often watch TV, but was at a friends house and didn’t have internet. That commercial reminded me of why I don’t often watch TV.
If it’s not “typically black”, or, more to the point, if the advertisers are not playing off of what they expect to be the audience’s notion of “typically black” then all we have is an eccentric and obnoxious character.
That this eccentric and obnoxious character happens to be black should be insignificant.
If the fact that the character is black is not insignificant, then why is it not? Is the joke supposed to be “Ha! Ha! Look at that character! Black people are so like that! How funny that he is so typically black!” Or is the joke supposed to be “Ha! Ha! Look at this eccentric and obnoxious character! What a jackass that particular individual is!”
I don’t think the character is “typically black”* but I do think the characterization is built upon some negative stereotypes of black men. I also think the Russian character is built upon negative stereotypes of Russians.
So, I don’t think it’s out of line to ask why one commercial is racist and one is not racist.
*The very idea that it could be at all possible that one single character (or one single real life person, for that matter) could singularly embody “blackness” so fully, in all its forms, is a completely racist notion in and of itself.
I’m black, and I thought it was oddly funny (though not effective at making me want to buy DirecTv). Didn’t ping my racism-dar any more than most stuff white folks do. 
More than anything it just seems to play up stereotypes of “New Money”. Particularly stereotypes of people who achieve a new money lifestyle through professional sports or entertainment.
Yep. But mostly it was funny. The little kid punching the valet cracked me up.
What about the little chinese guy the’re using now?
“Everything I do is crazy big!”
Anybody got a link to it?