White PSP Ad Stirs Racial Debate

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Apparently, there are many people who feel the new Sony campaign promoting its new white PSP is racist because it features a white woman in a position of power over a black woman. Bells and whistles are going off over at Joystiq but there's also another image that's part of the campaign that shows the black woman getting her vengeance over the white woman. Can we all just relax? Sony and TBWA, of course, intended the ad to be controversial otherwise it'd sit there like all the other boring ads wasting our time every day. Racist or not, it's got us talking and that's half the battle any campaign faces.

by Steve Hall    Jul- 5-06   Click to Comment   
Topic: Campaigns, Opinion, Trends and Culture   

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Comments



Comments

those ads are certainly skirting the line between hood-wearers and not, IMO. those particular models were chosen precisely because of their contrasts, right down to the kinky hair of the black woman versus the straight hair of the white one.

true, the black woman "gets her revenge" but the imagery is still disturbing. there are other ways to convey the same message and avoid the appearance of racial domination.

for example:

* show the women engaged in equal battle, in every image, rather than in positions of domination and submission.

* have the same woman do battle with herself dressed in a white outfit and a black outfit. in fact, i'd argue that's a better ad because how different is the white PSP from the black one, really?

Posted by: tiffany on July 6, 2006 10:31 AM

Getting us talking is not half the battle. Getting people to buy something is. Don't try to elevate what we do (market) to the realm of art. This ad is offensive, and it is also just pretty lame.

Posted by: jackson on July 6, 2006 1:35 PM

How come the black girl is wearing a kunta kinte revolutionary uniform? Everything here is designed to be racist. Don't tell me that an AD didn't see intentional pararel. She could have been wearing a black gown.

Posted by: Rex on July 6, 2006 5:55 PM

*sigh* Yet another ad depicting women grappling in a vaguely lesbian/cat-fight way. I don't feel that this is rascist, but maaaan am I tired of these clich餬 hackneyed fantasies being depicted as edgy advertising. Two hot girls! Having a fight! Is it a prerequisite now for all creative departments to be staffed only by pubescent 14-year-old boys?

Posted by: Scrawny on July 7, 2006 4:14 AM

TBWA is simply headed in the direction the target maket is fond of...SHOCK VALUE! Tip of the hat!

Posted by: John Boy on July 7, 2006 12:57 PM

Is it really racist? Is it really vaguely lesbianish? Or is it that people only see color?

The way I see it lets strip away that they are both women and lets look past their skin color. Ok they are two people. Lets go past that one woman represents the one product while the other is the new product. Now that we know that they are representing products what does the ad really say? It tells me our new product kicks our old products ass.

I for one am so sick of politically correct America and all of the white people that feel guilty over anything that has to do with a person of color. Yes America has had a shady past very shady. But really how long is too long to hold onto all of these bad feelings. I really want to know when people will just wake up and just open their eyes and see that we are all the same on every level.

Posted by: Mr M on July 7, 2006 1:52 PM

the thing is they did this intentionally and a White person did not make this ad the Asians did and they know what they were doing, I think white ppl should be ashamed that they are being shown in this light. Oh yea they have an image of the black woman pinning down the white woman and it makes us blacks look like savages. The biggest problem is she looks like a slave... They could've gotten just a normal look black female instead of her. They could've easily had 2 ppl of the same race one with a black shirt and one with a white fighting and no one would be mad, or they could've had a beautiful white woman and beautiful black person in a picture instead of a beautiful white woman and a slave looking black woman. They couldve just put a black person with black psp and the white psp hell it'd be better to show black with white and white with black showing unity. Why did they have to make a black woman even fight a woman.

Posted by: swade on July 9, 2006 10:55 AM

Were the Benneton ads in the 80s racist? Or were they just creepy?

Posted by: liebowriter on July 9, 2006 5:04 PM