Kevin over at Wizbang came across a Volkswagen commercial for a model known as the Polo, and it literally ends with a bang. As it turns out, the ad was not sanctioned by Volkswagen or its ad agency, and they referred to it as a "hoax viral commercial". The creators of the ad are known for spoof advertising but they also have a portfolio of legitimate ads. Quite frankly, I didn’t see anything wrong with the content except that it might run afoul of "truth in advertising" standards. I can see why Volkswagen would want to distance itself from the ad because they wouldn’t want to do anything to offend Muslims or Arabs. However, the deeper question is, was it truly offensive? After pondering this off and on over the day, I think not, even though surely some (or many) may take offense. As with good comedy, sometimes good advertising reveals and makes fun of real truths in our society, opening the door to discussion. Think of the Daily Show. They’re funny because behind the humor, there are kernels of truth to their skits. Sometimes comedy conveys the message much better and more efficiently than straight commentary. If O’Reilly can be the butt of jokes, why not violent extremists? In the case at hand, the target of ridicule happened to be a terrorist bent on killing himself and as many as possible around him at a bistro. Fortunately, the Polo saved the day and justice was served. Small but tough.
42 thoughts on “Edgy Advertising”
Comments are closed.
On one hand that commercial is definitely funny. On the other it’s definitely vile. Overall, a good symbol of our times, I’d say.
However, the deeper question is, was it truly offensive?
Yes.
Your suggestion for why it’s not offensive is that perhaps there’s a kernel of truth in it, but that, in and of itself, is not an excuse for offense. There are manners to consider, even with truth, if one wants to avoid being offensive.
If a particular individual had been the butt of this joke, rather than a sterotypical figure representing perhaps millions of olive-skinned, kaffiah-wearing (but otherwise peace-loving) individuals, you’d have a point with your O’Reilly comparison. But this crossed the line precisely because it played off a stereotype.
I didn’t watch the ad, but I read its description at Wizbang.
And I have to say: good anti-Bush, anti-Iraq war, left-liberal though I am, I thought it was funny.
I think it was Larry Niven who described ‘humor’ as ‘an interrupted defense mechanism.’ Meaning, humor is what happens when you can neither fight nor flee. And it was Robert Heinlein who noted that humor is often based on some kind of cruelty. And the best humor, esp. satiric humor, *is* subversive.
I’m sorry, Edward, because I do see your point; but most suicide car bombers *are* Arabs. Who would you rather have seen play the role: a little old grandma? How may little old grandmas do you know who’ve blown themselves up at discos, police stations, pizza parlors, and bus stops?
It’s funny that this happened to VW again. About 30 years ago, the National Lampoon ran another infamous VW Beetle ad. It showed a Beetle floating in water and the copy read: “If Ted Kennedy had been driving a VW, he’d be President today.” I thought that was hilarious then; I still do – and I worked for Ted’s Presidential campaign in 1980.
Who are the suicide terrorists? The issue with certain stereotypes, and why they are stereotypes in the first place, is that they are true. We know the kinds of people who kill themselves in front of bistros with nail-packed bombs. Those feeling offended would be so much better off fighting against religious extemists and terrorists rather than stereotypes. When it comes to the evils of terrorism, I admit I’m a little short on manners. If the ad was too generalized for your taste, then perhaps they could’ve identified the person as Zarqawi.
Yeah, Edward. When Chas lumps your partner in with suicide bombers, it’s your fault and your partner’s fault, for not sufficiently jumping up and down and yelling, “Hello! Muslim non-suicide-bomber over here!” loudly enough for Chas to hear.
I hope he remembers that part about stereotypes being true when it comes back to bite him.
I’m of two minds right now.
One is to re-emphasize that the first point I conceded about this is that the ad is indeed funny.
The other, however, is to point out that this
Who would you rather have seen play the role: a little old grandma? How may little old grandmas do you know who’ve blown themselves up at discos, police stations, pizza parlors, and bus stops?
misses the point.
The question was a simple one. Is the ad offensive. The answer is simple too. Yes.
Nothing CaseyL or Charles has prevented addresses why it’s “not” offensive.
Every so often, you get anti-Muslim bigots demanding to know why – if there are so many peaceable Muslim leaders who condemned September 11 and who condemn suicide bombers – we never hear from them.
Then you point them to any of several websites that collate peaceable Muslim spokespersons condemning September 11 and terrorist attacks on civilians…
…and do they say “Wow, I was wrong. Sorry”?
Nope. You can tell they’re anti-Muslim bigots, as opposed to just ignoramouses speaking out of their lack of knowledge, because finding out that many Muslims, prominent religious leaders and ordinary not-especially-religious types, have indeed condemned September 11 and terrorist attacks on civilians, doesn’t do anything to change their opinion that all Muslims are pro-terrorists: that the stereotype of Muslims as suicide bombers is true.
That’s what a bigot is: someone who believes the stereotype is true, it’s the facts that are wrong.
(ignoramouses? ignorats? ignoramuses. Sorry.)
Besides which, there’s no particular reason to suppose that any of us who find the ad offensive are not also doing our best to work against suicide bombings. — Likewise, I don’t eat meant, and sometimes people ask: well, why don’t you spend your time working to help other human beings? To which the answer is: (a) how do you know I’m not doing that already, and (b) it’s not as though not eating meat takes a lot of time or something, so why there should be a conflict between the two is a mystery.
Meat. What I don’t eat is meat.
Meat. What I don’t eat is meat.
Don’t worry, we all knew what you meat.
But if you don’t eat meant, does that mean you never eat your words?
Hilzoy: Likewise, I don’t eat meant, and sometimes people ask: well, why don’t you spend your time working to help other human beings?
My answer to that question would be “I don’t eat them either.”
Nothing CaseyL or Charles has prevented addresses why it’s “not” offensive.
clearly, there’s a bit of typo-flu going round
that should be
Nothing CaseyL or Charles has presented addresses why it’s “not” offensive.
When Chas lumps your partner in with suicide bombers, it’s your fault and your partner’s fault
Had I done so, you would’ve had a point.
Bird: Had I done so, you would’ve had a point.
You didn’t know that Edward’s partner is one of the people whom the advert stereotypes as being suicide bombers?
Of course, having a partner who is one of the people being insulted by this ad is not a pre-requisite to finding this ad offensive: one may find it offensive to see an entire racial group insulted without either being part of that racial group or loving one of that racial group. Just because.
To split hairs, I didn’t assume Charles had implicated my partner here, Phil. He’s Asian, not Middle Eastern. Having Middle Eastern friends, though, I still find the stereotype offensive, but will concede it’s not a stretch (although similar stereotypes about gung-ho US soldiers serving as guards in prisons could be drawn and would most likely upset the more hawkish among us).
None of which, still, addresses the flip-side question I’m curious about: why Charles and CaseyL think the ad is not offenseive.
Did CaseyL even say it wasn’t offensive, Edward? I read him as acknowledging that it is, but suggesting that the humor still has value.
I don’t think I said the ad wasn’t offensive. I think I said it was funny even though I could understand why people found it offensive. I think I said something along the lines of how a lot of humor is offensive, even pratfall jokes, because a lot of humor is based on something bad happening to someone.
Humor is wierd. Describing exactly why you find something funny, even though in another context you would be or might be horrified by it, is a lot like trying to define why some smut is good and other smut isn’t. Very subjective, in other words.
If you’re going to infer my entire character based on my reaction to something you consider unacceptable humor, then I guess that also makes me an anti-Irish Catholic, anti-Kennedy bigot.
I’m curious — say a (subversive) Middle-Eastern Arab wanted to make a commercial just like this. How would s/he portray the terrorist in way that an Arab Muslim viewership would not be inclined to take it as an attack on all Arab Muslims? Or would just the knowledge that the creator was also an Arab Muslim be enough to deflect charges of stereotyping?
CaseyL,
I’m sorry if I misinterpreted this
I’m sorry, Edward, because I do see your point; but most suicide car bombers *are* Arabs.
but I read it as an argument against why I found it offensive (too much multitasking)….as if to imply the kernel of truth behind the stereotype absolved its creators from the charge of being offensive. My point is, kernel of truth or not, this ad is still offensive.
If you’re going to infer my entire character based on my reaction to something you consider unacceptable humor, then I guess that also makes me an anti-Irish Catholic, anti-Kennedy bigot.
Not my intent at all (and I don’t see how my request for an explanation was a inference to your character at all, but…). In fact I agree. If I couldn’t make gay or Christian jokes, I’d lose half my repertoire. That doesn’t mean they’re not offensive though. The best humor often is on some level.
But backtracking a bit. Acknowledgeing right up front that I found the ad funny, I took Charles’ question at face value and tried to answer it clinically (i.e., without dragging my personal feelings about anti-Muslim sentiments into it): is the ad offensive?
I still insist it is. And see now that you do to.
Charles?
As far as I know, most suicide bombers are Islamic radicals. However, a number of non-suicide terror bombers are not (see Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber, various abortion clinic bombers, etc). How would people feel about a commercial in which a militant looking white man, maybe holding a well-thumbed copy of the Turner Diaries, got into the car, drove to a crowded area, started a timebomb ticking, then got out of the car and left only to return after the boom to find that the car had contained the bomb? Offensive or not offensive?
American viewers would probably not see the “militant-looking white man” as a stereotype for all American white men and would be unlikely to consider it offensive. I think a closer analogy would be a commercial made, say, by a European that portrayed a stereotypical arrogant American (though of course the negative behavior being displayed is not as horrible). Would an American seeing such a commercial find it at all offensive? And would the answer change if you were seeing the commercial on American TV vs. French TV?
The best humor often is on some level.
Exacatackally 🙂
You didn’t know that Edward’s partner is one of the people whom the advert stereotypes as being suicide bombers?
Edward’s writings tell me that his partner does not participate in suicide terrorist attacks, and he is not a violent whack job.
Charles?
In part, Casey’s answer mirrored mine, which was right in the post: “…even though surely some (or many) may take offense.” I personally don’t think it was offensive because the protagonist in the commercial does not reflect the vast and overwhelming majority of Muslims or Arabs. He may say “Allahu Akhbar” before blowing himself up, but he’s a heretic, and those who subscribe to this warped religious view are the enemy. He may be olive-complected, but he is not a representative for Arabs. The point is that I differentiate between the enemy (and they are the enemy because of what they do, no matter the skin color) and the larger Muslim and Arab world.
Edward’s writings tell me that his partner does not participate in suicide terrorist attacks, and he is not a violent whack job.
Indeed. Which is precisely why I find an advert offensive that runs on the stereotype that all people who look like Edward’s partner are violent whack jobs. Because millions of them – including Edward’s partner – are not. So, insulting them is offensive.
To split hairs, I didn’t assume Charles had implicated my partner here, Phil. He’s Asian, not Middle Eastern.
Well, I did specify “Muslim” rather than “Arab,” but point taken. Still, I’m not as willing to cut Chas any slack on stuff like this, since I’ve seen enough of his silliness in the past to believe I have a little insight on how he feels about this topic.
I’m just waiting for a list of what other stereotypes are true.
NB: “Protaganist?”
Which is precisely why I find an advert offensive that runs on the stereotype that all people who look like Edward’s partner are violent whack jobs.
You’re overprojecting.
Bird: You’re overprojecting.
An unconvincing assessment, coming from someone who doesn’t think an advert using an offensive racist stereotype is offensive – indeed, who actually writes a blog post to tell the world you don’t think insulting an entire racial/ethnic group is offensive, because you find it amusing.
I don’t see this as stereotyping all Arabs as terrorists. I see it as stereotyping all suicide bombers as idiots. Which, given the payoff they believe in (what is it? disco-dancing with 6-dozen virgins?) seems just about right.
Yes vote: funny. No vote: offensive.
I’m pretty much with xanax here, which is why I laughed. I loved seeing the plan thwarted.
I’m curious about the costuming, because it was that, rather than the facial features of the driver, that said to me, “suicide bomber.” And I have no idea if that’s a wrongheaded stereotype. Can someone enlighten me?
xanax,
I’ll ask you the same thing I asked Charles…why is it not offensive to you?
Charles,
I personally don’t think it was offensive because the protagonist in the commercial does not reflect the vast and overwhelming majority of Muslims or Arabs.
He doesn’t reflect your average suicide bomber who’d be assigned to martyr himself in front of a bistro with a few anonymous patrons either. He looks affluent, calm, and obviously (if one buys the sales pitch) possessing good taste. If he were a sleeper who had passed well enough to acquire the home and car he had, not to mention the self-assurance, he’d most likely be used on a bigger target.
My point being that he is portrayed to look like any other reasonably well-to-do immigrant in a Western country. That’s why it’s offensive.
xanax,
I’ll ask you the same thing I asked Charles…why is it not offensive to you?
Edward: I’ve given a great deal more thought to why things do offend me than to why they don’t. First of all, I believe humor to be utterly and absolutely subjective. There is much I don’t find funny or even vaguely amusing that others find hysterical. And some things that I think are a riot that others don’t even get. And I find this funny.
Also, for me, there is a big difference between what I aknowledge to be in bad taste and what I am offended by. I agree ethnic humor, for example, is neither PC nor in particularly good taste. And some of it is in particularly bad taste. But, if it’s funny to me, I laugh, I enjoy it, and if I’m laughing, I interpret that to mean I was not offended. In fact, I think it’s a bit hypocritical to claim that something is at once funny and offensive. In general, when something offends me, I’m not laughing. Because I’m not amused. I’m offended.
I also think there’s a difference between what offends one viscerally – at the gut level – and what offends one intellectually. I take the former pretty seriously but the latter, being an interpretation and hence not a real primal reaction, I generally ignore. The exception to this goes to intent: If I’m quite sure someone is trying, consciously, deliberately and maliciously to be offensive, I’ll generally meet that attempt with a vigorous defense.
In the case of this particular ad, I think there are two reasons why I’m not offended:
1) I’ve been an advertising executive on the creative side for over 20 years and so I probably look at this ad through different eyes than most people. As a video production it is a very successful sight-gag. And in the same way that I’ve distanced myself personally from the content of all advertisements so as to remain objective, I view this as a piece of professional video production that either works at what it’s trying to say or it doesn’t. In this case it does work – quite well – and it does so with wit, intelligence and tongue-in-cheek humor.
2) This is probably the overarching reason: I’m generally not offended by jokes, even those in very bad taste, because in this serious, serious world, I appreciate genuine attempts at humor to ease the aching spirit. I laugh easily and as often as possible and, when necessary, I make an effort not to take offense where I’m quite sure none was intended.
I beleive this was intended to be funny. I’m willing and able to let it be just that and nothing more.
Spider Robinson wrote a filk for Jake Stonebender in one of the Callahan’s Place books, where Jake advises that the hardest thing to do is to laugh “when the joke’s on you” – effectively he argued that it’s okay to laugh when someone else is humiliated is if you are prepared to laugh at your own humilitation.
I dunno. My feeling is that yes, jokes that depend on insulting an entire ethnic group can be funny – laughter is the least-controllable reflex – but they can also be offensive. And I can recognise their offensiveness along with their capacity to trigger my laugh-reflex, and decide that my amusement is not worth offending people. Kind of like being vegetarian on ethical grounds while still liking meat…
Edward, Jes,
To split hairs, I didn’t assume Charles had implicated my partner here, Phil. He’s Asian, not Middle Eastern.
That one is just too rich! Did Jes just stereotype?
That one is just too rich! Did Jes just stereotype?
I don’t think so, I think he was talking about this based on this post
Whoops, _she_ was talking about, sorry Jes
An unconvincing assessment, coming from someone who doesn’t think an advert using an offensive racist stereotype is offensive
False premise, your concluding with unfounded certitude that this was an “offensive racist stereotype”. It was a stereotype of suicide terrorists, not all Muslims and not all Arabs as you seem to believe.
He doesn’t reflect your average suicide bomber who’d be assigned to martyr himself in front of a bistro with a few anonymous patrons either.
I can’t name a precise profile for the typical suicide terrorist, Edward, but you cannot conclude that they’re poor because many or most are not poor. You cannot conclude whether suicide terrorists have good taste or not. You cannot conclude that the actor was portraying an immigrant. Most suicide terrorists were probably not as calm as the actor in the commercial, but who knows. Most practitioners of these acts are male. All suicide terrorists are afflicted with an evil and heretical ideology and are duped into believing that it’s okay to blow themselves up in front filled public spaces. The actor’s scarf gives us an indication that his religious affiliation is some branch of Islam, but his act tells us that it is a branch of Islam that we’re at war with. It is an unreasonable stretch to infer that this is an indictment of all Muslims because we all know that the vast and overwhelming majority of Muslims condemn this act. The man is olive-complected, but it is a sad fact of life that most suicide terrorists in the modern era hail from a certain part of the world where a certain content of melanin is common. The nationality of the actor is unknown. He could be originally from Libya or Italy, or America for that matter. Roger Simon has photos of Allawi and Bertolucci, noting their similarities. Because of this, I fully reject the spurious assertion that the commercial was racist. If the commercial was offensive to anyone, it was to our enemies, a thumb in their collective eye.
lj,
Right, but (according to Edward) he’s He’s Asian, not Middle Eastern. I guess Jes thinks that only Arabs can be muslim (Jes’ 10:49 post):
You didn’t know that Edward’s partner is one of the people whom the advert stereotypes as being suicide bombers?
Stan,
not to put too fine a point on it, but you are the one who jumped to a conclusion. And given the fact that the news media just sh*t a brick over a group of 13 Chinese and 2 Iraqis, you are out on an exceedingly slender limb.
False premise, your concluding with unfounded certitude that this was an “offensive racist stereotype”. It was a stereotype of suicide terrorists, not all Muslims and not all Arabs as you seem to believe. […] Because of this, I fully reject the spurious assertion that the commercial was racist. If the commercial was offensive to anyone, it was to our enemies, a thumb in their collective eye.
Does anyone else have a problem with these sentences?
we all know that the vast and overwhelming majority of Muslims condemn this act
Who exactly is “we” here? You may know that, and I may know that, but I assure you there are plenty of people out there who *don’t* know that. I would suggest that you take that into account.
Anarch: Does anyone else have a problem with these sentences?
Yes, but I don’t think there’s any point in continuing this discussion.