Usually I have not that much sympathy for big companies that try to impose restrictions onto their customers/consumers. Especially not when they try to do so by using methods that are completely unethical. Like for example Sony who used a rootkit to impose copy protection in their CD’s. But what I do not like is the kind of “company-bashing” that is now been done by a blogger from Engadget. Some editor called Ryan Block (no doubt he must be a single white caucasian asshole American nerd guy) is trying to make the international readers believe that “Sony is under fire for racist advertising” in Holland. Apparantly Sony is advertising for the fact that their is a new ceramic white PSP (Playstation Portable for the non-gamers) coming out. So they put a huge poster in Amsterdam of a fierce looking white woman grabbing a black woman’s face. Wether the ad is tasteful or not remains debatable, but what is completely stupid is trying to make this into something it isn’t; something racist.
Of course when you have a really guilty consience like, let’s say the Americans have with their nice history of genocide (Native Americans) and slavery and racial segregation – then you might have some associations like ‘white person – master, black person – slave’ making this ad incredibly politically uncorrect. For us Dutch who see this add, these associations dont come at all, or maybe after long consideration. So for Dutch people this is just what it seems – an ad with a white person grabbing a black person. And – mind you – there are also images where the roles are reversed and the black woman is grabbing the white female.
After all: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So people who see some kind of racial thing in this ad are just projecting their own guilty consience and/or thoughts onto others. As I read in one of the comments on a forum regarding this hype:
As an ethnic minority in the Netherlands, I do not have a problem with this whatsoever.
I can imagine the uptight Americans having a problem with everything, so this one as well.
I watched the ads in amsterdam, and I did not see any riots in front of them, nor were people trying to damage it or tear it down.
I think the dutch people are somewhat sensible enough to see through such an ad.
Hear, hear, and shame on Engadget for trying to blow this out of proportions!
(see also: Ad Critic and Help I’m a Female Engineer)