Sales Genie: a Lead on Racist Superbowl Ads

The Superbowl is the one time of year when I actually look forward to the commercials. While there were a few good spots, this year's crop of million dollar ads didn't blow me away. At least not in a good way. A few commercials, however, distinguished themselves with varying doses of good old fashioned racist stereotyping. Let's start with Sales Genie.

Sales Genie sells information. Sales leads, to be exact. That's right, they provide consumer information to the telemarketers. Next time your land line rings during dinner, and it's that guy from the Sears Credit Protection Plan you've been dying to hear from, you may well have Sales Genie to thank.

According to their site, they can provide info on 210million consumers, covering 95% of US households. We're not just talking phone numbers, either, oh no -- Sales Genie is so much more than that. For a fee, they will provide all manner of interesting nuggets on these US consumers (that's you and me), such as income, home value, age, gender, years at residence, ethnicity, bankruptcy status, and more.

That's right folks, they even offer instruction on accessing "sensitive data", such as ethnicity or whether there are children in the home. They also inform you that even though consumer calls must be within the federal "Do Not Call" guidelines, you may still request that your sales leads include those "Do Not Call" numbers, simply by checking a box. Don't ask, don't tell, y'all!



So that's who they are. Let's see how they advertised their services during the most coveted of all TV timeslots:




See, this is where diversity in hiring pays off. Did no one on their marketing team step forward and say, "You know ... this might not play so well, boss"? Really? Who did those accents? I'm surprised they didn't go with straw hats and protruding teeth, à la Abercrombie and Fitch. Jeff Bercovici of Porfolio magazine, reports that the spokesperson for OCA, an Asian-Pacific Americans advocacy group had this to say:

We found it really racist. We'll be discussing how to respond once we have everybody in the office, but some of our members have already been contacting us. It was really offensive.

Of course, many people disagree. I love when White folks get to decide that something isn't racist. Here are some of the more common justifications floating around on The Internets:

Panda bears are Chinese, so panda bears in cartoons would have a Chinese accent.

Yes, I'm serious. I saw this comment not just once, but several times.

1) Panda bears are animals, therefore, they do not speak.

2) An animal indigenous to a certain region of the world does not take on the characteristics of humans who are indigenous to that part of the world. (There is the exception of Paris Hilton's dog wearing pink dresses, but that's involuntary on the part of the dog.)

3) The "accent" in this ad is ridiculous. It is nothing more than an anthropomorphic attempt to disguise a stereotypical caricature of an accent as an actual accent. It's demeaning.

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What about the Kangaroo with the Australian accent, huh? Huh? Nobody's bitching about him. You're the racist!

In American culture, some accents are viewed as "good", while others are viewed as "bad". The list of desirable accents includes French, British, South African, Australian, Swedish (especially on hot tall blonde females), and the like. German too, though folks seem to prefer the way French rolls off the tongue. People with these accents are often assumed to be sexy, smart, cultured, worldly, and/or interesting. They are also often assumed to be White.

Accents on the undesirable list include any variety of Asian accent, Indian (as in from India), and Spanish accents -- unless actually from Spain. This list also includes Black folks who sound "too ethnic", Native peoples, and some Southerners, even though these aren't "foreign" languages. People on the undesirable accent list are often assumed to be ignorant, lazy, stupid, disruptive, sneaky, primitive, poor, uncultured, criminals, or any combination of the above. They are also, with the exception of Southerners, assumed to be people of color. Interesting how that shakes out.

So advertising a shampoo or some insurance with an Australian-sounding lizard or 'roo has a whole different connotation than some pandas whose stereotypical accents smack of the Chinaman caricatures in old movies. The pandas in this spot are portrayed as not the sharpest quadripeds in the jungle, buffoons to laugh at, whereas the lizard (you know who I'm talking about) makes you want to go buy insurance and take him up on that offer of crumpets.

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What about the psychic panda? She didn't have an accent at all! The characters were diverse! You're the racist!

Slow down, Maynard. The psychic panda did have an accent -- most likely it is very similar to your accent, thus you consider it "the norm". Beyond that, the psychic panda character is portrayed as the smart one, the rescuer. She's the one who shows the ignorant "Chinese pandas" the error of their ways and offers a solution. It's no coincidence she's the one portrayed with a generic White American accent, or, as you say, no accent at all. The hope is that viewers will also follow the sage advice of the psychic panda, and have a good laugh at the unfortunate Ching-Ching and Ling-Ling while they're at it.


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Moving on. Here is Sales Genie's other spot. This time the stars of the show are a very large family from India, obviously immigrants. Dad's boss is an Ebenezer Scrooge - Larry Tate hybrid.

Pretty much more of the same. Bad accents, stereotypical features (did you catch the wife's unibrow?), obsequious brown employee, powerful White boss. And what's that employee doing having all those kids if he can't even support them? Golly, Biff, good thing he called Sales Genie, or our tax dollars would be paying to keep all those kids in curry and saris!

Of course, many people had no problem with this one either:

I've seen so many Indian families with large numbers of kids. That's not racist, it's just reality. If it was a big White family, I wouldn't be offended. You're the racist!

I know you are, but what am I?

OK, you're right -- most likely you wouldn't feel offended if it were a large White family in the ad. And why should you? Having too many kids that you can't support is not an attribute generally applied to White people as a race. Because White folks are seen as individuals, whereas if an Indian (Mexican, Black...) family "has too many kids", it's seen as a racial trait or tendency. They've likely had to represent their race as well as themselves their whole lives. Can you see how they may feel offended where you would not? Had it been a large White family in the spot, you wouldn't have applied that to yourself in any way at all, because you probably don't even think of yourself in racial terms, you're just "the norm".


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You people are too sensitive. I have a friend from India, and he told us at work he thought it was funny. Lighten up! If it's ok with him, it should be ok with you.

1) Your friend is an individual. The fact that he personally doesn't find the commercial offensive does not translate into this commercial not being offensive to any Indian people.

2) People outside the dominant culture often feel pressure to go along with jokes aimed at their particular demographic. It's a way of separating themselves from that demographic in order to be seen as an individual, and aligning themselves with the dominant culture in order to avoid being labeled "too sensitive". It may also earn them the vaunted status of "one of the good ones". (I'm betting if he'd said it was racist, your Indian friend would suddenly not be so quotable.)

3) Just because it's ok with your friend, doesn't mean it has to be ok with me. He is not the spokesman for Indian people, or anyone else. He only speaks for himself.

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Whew. There were 2 other ads that fell along the same lines. First, Bud Light's Immigrant commercial:



Sigh. See above.

And the Black immigrant with the chicken? Are you kidding me? If someone says that's not a stereotype denoting primitive rituals, I'll scream. Again, the immigrants are portrayed as bumbling grinning idiots. Even the one who gets the White girl in the end is shown to be so stereotypical that it's seen as a joke rather than a possiblity. White men can remain secure in the knowledge that the funny little immigrant man poses no real threat.

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OK. Here's the last one.




Hola!

That's all I've got.