Being a man of broad-ranging intellect and all (I was googling about a movie called “White Slaves of Chinatown”) I recently came across an academic Marxist site that links two GOP attack ads about the debt ceiling to a sixties roughie film called “White Slaves of Chinatown” … successfully. Link.
One of the ads shows an adorable little white girl watching news reports about the mounting US debt, and the fact that China holds much of this debt, with the clear implication that the little girl will not be able to pay off this debt, and hence become “owned” by China.
The next ad is more explicit. It shows a beautiful blond freedom fighter (the adorable little white girl grown up?) making a video apparently under desperate circumstances, from the future. A modern day audience (including the same little girl from the first ad) watches as the freedom fighter woman warns that the debts that the people watching the ad have incurred have meant that the people who bought the debt now “control us” and " we live in economic slavery" just before she is dragged off screaming by anonymous uniformed police types – probably to a bordello/opium den.
Although the ads are too smart to make explicit the notion that the national debt will lead to widespread white slavery, there’s a definite, easily detectable undercurrent there. It’s a wonderful example of the sly and sleazy way the modern GOP makes appeals to racism and xenophobia without being explicit about it.
There is nothing subtle or smart about the “White Slaves of Chinatown” film (from 1964) that’s referenced later in the post, but it does demonstrate the crude racist fears that lie at the root of the ad.
I was surprised to discover that the GOP was linking their intrasigence on raising the debt ceiling to racist fears, but only because it seemed to be not at all related to racism. But apparently, for the GOP, racism is a one-size-fits-all solution. So the next time you hear a GOP supporter claiming that the GOP does not make appeals to racism, don’t believe a word of it. The GOP does not make EXPLICIT appeals to racism, but it’s mining the stuff that’s underground, for sure.
First of all, the first and second ads come from different groups. The first comes from the RNC, the second from the the American Future Fund.
The first ad is part of the RNC’s “Change Direction” ads from 2011, all about how the Obama Administration has raised taxes, ruined the economy and increased the national debt. You can see all four of them here.
And, why in the second ad do you say future girl is being dragged to “a bordello/opium den”? It looked more like she was being dragged away because she was trying to warn present Americans about a Chinese takeover and she was going to be thrown in prison or shot or whatever.
The deficit spending stuff definitely does get linked to fears of China and Chinese takeover. See, for instance, this ad by Nevada congressional candidate Mark Amodei:
Or this, which I think is just really a great ad, whatever you think of its politics:
But I don’t see the link there to the idea of Americans as Chinese sex slaves. I don’t even know that that’s a popular stereotype anymore, is it? Chinese are seen as fanatics, or robotic, or aggressive, or brainwashed Communists, but not as “lusting after white woman”
Reminds me of a joke, A psychiatrist is showing a patient Rorschach blobs. The patient sees the first one and says “A naked lady” sees the second and says “two naked ladies”, sees the third and says “3 naked ladies”. The psychiatrist says you seem obsessed with sex. The patient says “You’re the one with the dirty pictures”
I know there are race obsessed people who see race in everything but they are really stretching here. Having foreigners control your economy because they hold so much of your debt is a bad thing no matter what race they are. Germans and Greeks are the same race but that has not stopped the meltdown of the Greek economy. Likewise if creditors start balking at buying more US debt, no one will be concerned about race, only where the money is going to come from.
It was a joke, based on the “White Slaves of Chinatown” theme. The commercial does not show what happens to her.
Not consciously, but there’s a reason the meme of Chinese sex slavers after American women was revived for that roughie film back in the 1960s. And there’s a reason that the person transmitting the warning message was a young, sexy, attractive woman – to appeal to that racist fear. Could have been an old man, a young man, a young woman or a normal looking woman. But it was a young female hottie. That’s the link.
