Russia’s Racial Marketing
By Sean at 21 March, 2009, 10:26 am
"A good tan is a direct path to the Presidency."
Are these ads racist? Some think so. The use of Barack Obama visage has become a marketing hit in Russia, generating cries of racism. The charges relate to three ads featuring Obama. The Times of India reports:
Obama ice cream, anyone? Chocolate-vanilla ice cream is one of several Russian products being marketed using America’s first black president, even as critics call the ads racist.
Other ads featuring US President Barack Obama have promoted tanning salons and tooth-whitening services.
But the creator of one Obama-themed ad — for ice cream bars which have a chocolate-flavoured centre embedded in a layer of vanilla — insisted Friday that it was not racist and should be seen as a joke.
The ad for Duet ice cream bars features a smiling, cartoonish black man flashing a V-for-Victory sign in front of the white edifice of Washington’s Capitol building, along with the Russian slogan: “Everyone’s talking about it: dark inside white!”
Some blasted the ad as insensitive after it surfaced on English-language websites this week. “This is just racist,” said one visitor to the Ads of the World website, while another asked: “Is the ice cream as tasteless as the ad?”
Andrei Gubaidullin, who created the ad, said it was not racist and that Russia simply had a different attitude to race than Western countries.
“For Russia, this is not racist. It is fun and that’s it,” said Gubaidullin, creative director at Voskhod advertising agency, based in the Urals Mountains city of Yekaterinburg.
“We don’t consider teasing ethnic groups racist. It is just seen as a joke,” he said by telephone, adding that he personally liked Obama.
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Although I found the ads in bad taste (like much of adverstising is anyway), they didn’t strike me as racist. To make sure, I showed them to my wife (who volunteered plenty of hours for the Obama campaign.) She thought the ads were tacky and lame, but not racist.
They would be considered racist only a mind over infested with political correstness.
I think they are no more racist than some blogs (e.g. Robert Amsterdam) russofobic. Mr. Obama is very popular in Russia.
“They would be considered racist only a mind over infested with political correstness.”
For those who consider they are racist the next step would be to suggest that Putin is behind all this … after that – plutonium is in that ice cream and … Kasparov, Ladynina, Novodvorskaya would be in business again!
Plutonium-laced ice cream from Russia?
Stop perpetuating the stereotypes, Dima!
The media and advertisement style in Russia is coarse (and Moscow is the kitch capital of the world): a respectable company selling skin lotion in Russia thinks nothing of putting boobs on a giant billboard. So the Obama ads are nothing extraordinary. The main problem is that ordinary people are accustomed to racial slurs and not really bothered by them, and there is lot of violence against foreigners/minorities. The bad manners tend to perpetrate themselves.
What is a figure down in the right corner?
Miss Brown Piggy or sharpei?
Anyway, I find this idea somewhat better than chocolate “ears of Holyfield”. %)
It is good Ice cream even with the Plutonium!
Kyle
Not only are these ads not racist in Russia, they wouldn’t be racist anywhere. If Obama were depicted with a tail, that would be different. News Flash: Obama has dark skin.
Doom is deeply disappointed in Sean. First collaborating with Richards, and now promoting this nonstory.
Doom is now going to go to Subway Sandwiches.
Doom is deeply disappointed in Sean. First collaborating with Richards, and now promoting this nonstory.
It’s all about getting under your armor, Doom. But seriously, I don’t think their racist at all. I don’t even find them distasteful (but my sense of humor is vile to begin with.) I was curious what others thought to get a measure of readers’ sensibilities toward race.
Sean,
If you think those ice-cream bars are completely innocuous, why don’t you get some, drive over to South-Central LA and offer them to few people at random?
If you think those ice-cream bars are completely innocuous, why don’t you get some, drive over to South-Central LA and offer them to few people at random?
I will. Can you send me some?
Joking aside, context is the crux of the matter. Those ice cream bars are not offensive in Russia, but in the US, with “Oreo cookie” used as an insulting put down, those bars would indeed be offensive.
Oooh, Doom forgot about the Oreo term. But isn’t that usually used by US blacks to refer to people who aren’t “culturally” “black” enough?
You know, I just got finished watching Day of the Dead (the original one), and it occurs to me that Bub the educated zombie could probably defeat Candide in a battle of wits.
“But isn’t that usually used by US blacks to refer to people who aren’t “culturally” “black” enough?”
You are probably right–I’m not totally sure. I only know that it’s used as a put down.
This reminds of a very hot day years ago when I was an US infantryman posted in Fort Hood, Texas. As I was passing a handful of fellow soldiers I said something like, “don’t you feel like eating watermelon?” To my surprise my words elicited only hostile stares and silence. Later on I told a buddy that with this heat what I would love to have is a nice cold watermelon. He agreed wholeheartedly. Then I remarked about the hostility I sensed from the other soldiers earlier a couple of hours before. He asked me who they were, when I named them he laughed and said, “well, they were all black!” That’s when I learned that in the US my watermelon remark could have been interpreted as a condescending put down. I had no idea. (I wonder if that is still true today: if the image of blacks liking watermelon still has a negative undertone.)
It had that undertone at least when I was in high school in the 1980s. I imagine it still must, it having been only 25 years.
“whitehouse watermelon patch mailing’ by republican CA mayor was ‘a story’ early this month. He had to step down.
http://www.tothepointnews.com/content/view/3530/2/
Not to bring up my mother-in-law again, but she brought a Russian-produced blockbuster(according to her)DVD for our viewing. Russian chick flick? I think it was called “The Style -ists” or something close to that. Basically it was about Russian youth of the 60’s discovering American Jazz, and thus a new way to rebel. Many evils associated with lack of privacy inherent in socialized housing also highlighted (Bulgokov- influence?) Climax is discovery that heroine is pregnant with the child of a black American saxaphonist who has returned to the US. Everyone is happy in the end with one cool parent holding up child, like Simba in the beginning of Walt Disney’s Lion King. Black inside white. Learn to live with it; I guess that’s the takeaway.
That’s a big movie. I haven’t seen it though.
“It had that undertone at least when I was in high school in the 1980s.”
That’s the decade when my watermelon story took place. I’ll ask my 17-year-old daughter to see whether she’s aware of this mocking association of blacks and watermelons.
Tess, I glanced over your link. Wow, it mentions watermelons, Oreos as well as the generational issue. The Oreo cookie thing is obvious, but I never learned what’s the problem with watermelons. Something to do with Sambo? Yeah, yeah, I know that instead of asking I should simply google that.
That’s what Jim eats in Huck Finn.
Okay, I googled it. Here is an excerpt of the many results:
“It seems almost silly to say that watermelons have been racialized, but that is exactly what happened in this culture. For much of this country’s history, postcards showing Black people comically eating watermelons were popular among White Americans. Many of these so-called “Coon cards” show Black people stealing watermelons, fighting over watermelons, even being transformed into watermelons. The Jim Crow Museum houses a 1930s parlor game called, “72 Picture Party Stunts.” One of the game’s cards instructs players to “Go through the motions of a colored boy eating watermelon.”
That’s a big movie. I haven’t seen it though.
I’m starting to see how you are missing the opportunities. Groups of women going to see that movie would be all enthused about meeting an American man upon exiting the cinema. You should have been there.
Upon further consideration, maybe I’m wrong about that. The American was sort of the jerk who left the heroine pregnant and returned to the u.s. The hero was Russian who stayed with her after delivery of black baby. Whoops I ruined it for anyone that wanted suspense.
Chris and Tess, I asked my daughter about the watermelon thing. She had no idea what I was talking about. So there may well be a generational thing. And it’s not only because she’s a high school student in Vermont. She finished elementary and middle school in Maryland, right next to DC, and whites a minority of the student body.
Tess, it’s 2009. American men do not signify jazz.
No worries about the film Tess. I’m in a George Romero phase.
Talking about Black in White, I recommend a novel “Petropolis” by Anya Ulinich about “Russkaya Negrityanka” Sasha Goldberg and her advenures in Siberia, Moscow and across the US.
That’s an hilarious story Kolya. I think the watermelon thing still has some meaning in the deep south. So does the word coon. But up here in the midwest, coon is just short for racoon, so it’s all regional.
FYI Kolya, next time you pass a group of black people and are feeling hungry, don’t ask them if they feel like eating some fried chicken.
As for the Samba thing, I actually had that book at a kid and I am pretty sure Samba was indian. Which would explain the tigers. But if I remember correctly, the illustrations were kind of racist looking. Still, I don’t know why a story about turning tigers into butter for your pancakes is racist.
I challenzh Kandeed to fite of witz an gaim of chess. I willz win!!!! Whinner get to eat lozer! Kandeed soon bee lunch! Urrhh!!
Шалишь, шалава?
“I recommend a novel “Petropolis” by Anya Ulinich”
Candide, it’s the second time you mentioned her recently. You’ll be pleased to know that I bought the book and it’s on my messy “to read soon” pile. I’ll let you know. I have not read any Stheyngart. Different generation, but eight years ago I enjoyed an Ulitskaya short novel about a dying immigrant artist in New York ( Cheerful Funeral or something like that.) It was my then 80-year-old mother who recommended that book–in a couple of places it was obvious that Ulitstkaya did not the US too well, but it was a fun read.
“in a couple of places it was obvious that Ulitstkaya did not the US too well,”
Standard reaction of Soviet emigre intelligentsia who thought that they would be respected in the US, like they had been in the USSR, where the KGB cared enough to read them, but instead wound up living unknown in hovels. Ya Edichka is a variant of the same story.
Now, I don’t have a dog in this fight, but it seems to me that turning down a battle of wits with a zombie, even a smart one, must be the apex of cowardice. I would understand if it were an arm-wrestling match or endurance contest — there the odds are clearly in favor of the zombie. However, it’s only got a brainstem left functioning, and most of that is necrotized tissue. In anything involving problem-solving, Candide should have at least a 40-60 chance of emerging the victor.
I made a typo. What I tried to say was that I enjoyed the New York book by Ulitskaya even though from a couple rather unimportant details it was clear that she was unfamiliar with certain aspects of US life.
Chris, I’m not sure of what point you are trying to make. As far as I know, Ulitskaya lives in Russia, but in the book I mentioned (the only one of her works I read) I didn’t sense any hostility towards either the US or New York.
“but in the book I mentioned (the only one of her works I read) I didn’t sense any hostility towards either the US or New York.”
Well then never mind!
It is a common trope though. A Polish friend of mine in the States has lots of stories about it.
I guess Zombies no read books they comment upon.
Candide, I finished Petropolis, the Anya Ulinich novel you recommended. A quick read. I liked it. Ulinich has talent. In a couple of instances she laid it on too thick, but not enough to make it a bad book.
I liked it, but did not enjoyed it–if you know what I mean. It brought forth plenty of things of Soviet life and sovok mentality that I always found incredibly sad, dehumanizing and frustrating. I always had difficulty in accurately describing this to people who have never been there–a depressive but rather intangible something that is hard to articulate.
I also liked that Ulinich did not shy away from some of seaminess of life in the US. In an interview I read, Ulinich said that as a young new immigrant working as a house cleaner she was struck by some of this obscense inequality in American life. In the interview she also mentioned the screwed up US health system.
The Soviet imprint is a deep one, even in those who hated it. I remember talking to a Moscow friend back in 1990. He saw the rotten Soviet system for what it was, knew that it was on its last legs, and yet was not too optimistic about his own generation (he was about 30 back then.) I argued against him, trying to instill in him more optimism (the irony is that he himself was a very resourceful and energetic guy.) He would say that from rotten wood you cannot expect to make anything strong and supple (I forgot the exact wording.) He said that if you were raised in it, it’s just about impossible to get rid oneself of the Soviet imprint, even if you are an opponent of the system. Although he considered that people like himself were already “damaged goods,” he was hopeful that those born in the 1980s and later will not have that Soviet imprint he dreaded so much.
Reading Petropolis reminded me of those conversations of almost twenty years ago.
Kolya,
I’m glad the book didn’t disappoint you.
“The main problem is that ordinary people are accustomed to racial slurs and not really bothered by them”
It’s not a racial slur.
People on the Earth belong to different races, that’s no news for you, huh?
It doesn’t make a racism simply to state that a person belongs to some race. It’s enough to have eyes to see that.
What actually makes racism is stating that some races are inferior to others. It’s very serious, it must be battled, but it doesn’t happen here.