Panda and raccons, oh my.

Commercials aren't outwardly racist anymore, they're subversively racist. The company can't use real minorities and poke fun of their culture, not because of morality concerns, but rather because it might just cause a backlash in the viewing public. However, that doesn't mean the companies can't use symbolic images to represent a targeted group, and poke fun of their culture anyways. It's been done throughout history, often in printed media as caricatures. Africans have been represented as monkeys, crows, and worse. Asians were portrayed as rats, tigers, and worse. Of course back then, racism was mainstream and such images were tolerated even adored by the public. The blatantly racist images served to push the political agendas of a few by mongering fear among the masses, and succeeded partly because they were printed on the covers of very respectable and heavily circulated publications at the time. In our modern time, racism still exists, but now hides under an ocean of hypocrisy and political incorrectness. Media can't say all the racist things they believe in. The racism now lurks in subtle symbols, and the pretense of humor. Nothing has changed but the way in which things are shown.


The commercial below played during this Superbowl, using animated panda characters named "Ching-Ching" and "Ling-Ling". Of course, when there's a panda shown anywhere, someone needs to bang the gong and light the fireworks. It's understandable that the panda, being cute and benign looking, will always be used as a mascot for marketing purposes. The World Wildlife Federation, the Olympics in China, and this company called Sales Genie, now all share the same marketing ploy. But was it truly necessary to portray these pandas as business-motivated, and engrish speaking? of course not, it was just fun. A joke with no ill will intent.




Watching that commercial reminded me of another commercial that i saw a long time ago. A quick search on you tube and there it was.



It seems funny and harmless enough, yeah? All these wise-cracking raccoons did was: steal a car, neglect the laws while driving, and then grab and dash from the drive-thru window to avoid paying. These raccoons are criminals. It would be the epitome of stupid to make a commercial like this and not understand the symbolically-racist nature of these characters. "Coons," an utterly racist and demeaning slang, comes from the raccoon animal. According to the Museum of Racist Memorabilia as Ferris State University, "The coon caricature is one of the most insulting of all anti-Black caricatures. The name itself, an abbreviation of raccoon, is dehumanizing. As with Sambo, the coon was portrayed as a lazy, easily frightened, chronically idle, inarticulate, buffoon."

How did they (the advertising agency, the companies) pass this off as acceptable commercials? How do we as the bud of these racist jokes not noticed? I guess it's fine when it's a joke in the name of selling shit. But I will guarantee this: you will never see a commercial in your lifetime of a talking cracker sipping wine and selling health insurance. That is not acceptable, and would be blatantly racist. Maybe, maybe you might see something more subtle like a semi-truck driving donkey who constantly uses his horn.