Super Bowl ad watch (updated)
A mailing list rental house owned by Clinton donor Vinod Gupta ran a Super Bowl ad featuring a Ramesh doing a straight-up Apu impersonation, complete with that fake accent and seven kids. Why would a desi-owned company run that accent, playing to a racial caricature propelled into Americana by comedians in brownface? And their panda ad uses Chinese stereotypes just as bad. Maybe the thinking is that it’s ok because they’re animated. Sad.
What the hell? “Ling Ling” the panda with a bad, Charlie Chan Chinese accent? We’ll withold comment until after the defamation lawsuit is settled. [Link]
… complete with a stereotypical wonton font sign. Boo… they’ve got another commercial with an Indian-accented guy behind a desk getting yelled at by his boss. You know, because foreign accents are funny… [Link]
A San Francisco journie blogger noticed the racism — but only the Chinese accent and script. The Indian one went right over his head:
The most notable ad in these two breaks was the horribly unfunny and tasteless SalesGenie ad, with pandas speaking in Chinese accents. Someone’s going to be apologizing tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that. [Link]
This beer ad which ran during the event has Carlos Mencia and Anjul Nigam (bit part in Cloverfield) both doing terrible Indian accents:
SAJA has the rundown on other desi-linked ads, including this Punjabi-Malayalee rap collab. It made it to the top 3 in a corporate promo but lost the chance to air during the Bowl to a fairly vanilla (IMO) alt.rocker:
Update: What a finish!
Update 2: Gupta wrote the ads himself (via Angry Asian Man). Somehow I don’t think ‘badly stereotyped’ is what they were going for in the ‘worst ad’ sweeps. Someone at either InfoUSA or the ad agency should have have raised a flag.
Salesgenie.com Ready to Reclaim Crown as Super Bowl’s ‘Worst Ad’ Champion: Vin Gupta, founder and chairman of Salesgenie.com, conceptualized and wrote copy for the ads himself… Salesgenie.com’s ad approach is more Middle America than Madison Avenue. Unlike many Super Bowl advertisers, Gupta doesn’t enlist A-list celebrities or incur hefty production costs… Gupta wrote the script for the new ads, and said, “I’m not giving up my day job for an ad agency just yet.” Geoff Callan and Daniel Grace from Creative Mint, a San Francisco-based ad agency, handled the animation production for the spots. [Link]
on Sunday, February 3rd, 2008, 8:52 pm in Ads, Business, Sports, Video clips › 
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nice blog, ill be back, chk me out one day
I would not be quick to hold Gupta responsible, but a quick search shows that the animator knew the script sucked, which was written by Salesgenie management:
http://blog.milowerx.com/?p=546
Manish,
Thanks for writing about this. I saw the advert and was really annoyed at the stupid accent. To hear that there is a desi connection in the ownership of the company is disheartening to say the least.
The blog link does not work anymore….
Apparently salesgenie.com wanted it to be the worst ad ever.
yes, salesgenie.com wanted it to be the worst ad ever.. that is how they get publicity and hits to their website…
the accent was a bit too much…
where the hell was the kwikemart?
:)
Didn’t see the Indian one, but the panda’s pissed me off too. I think it would have been fine without the accents - and much better.
I would love to know how much input Gupta had over the voices, but it reeks of unfunny FOB humor (and yeah, I know that’s offensive too)
Where did Vinod Gupta come up with this idea — while waiting at a gas station in St Louis?
i think the ads are ok, though a little crude. note that the chinese and the indian are being positioned in non-traditional power roles - enterpreneurship and sales - hardly the coolie stereotypes. i have a feeling gupta thought this up over a beer with some of his buddies - not a few of them would be powerbrokers with stiff accents who’ve been throwing middle fingers to racists all their lives even as they laugh all the way to the bank.
p.s. manish: i posted a related comment to the news story follow-up but the blog ate it. munge alert.
Gupta’s response to the critics was almost worse than the ads themselves. The man is a disgrace and I wish other Indians would stop defending him, or make excuses for why he acts like an idiot. He’s just a fucking asshole.
temper. temper. that’s not very zen like mr golfastarian :-)
personally, i dont see the guy acting as a community spokesperson [you know, the kind who speak in a nasal long drawn voice, like alan thicke]. the guy is making money - and he’s good at that. in regard to desi rep, the guy had a computer language named after him for crying out loud - they used to have courses for Gupta sql - before he converted his comp to a bajillion rupiah and moved on. for a f* a*, he could be doing a lot worse.
tons of money gets you that freedom. freedom is the ability to do what one wants, if it means making bad jokes on national tv, so be it.
ok. egg on my face. gupta sql was by another gupta tech. sorry - it’s these indian names ;-)
but i still stand by my backup. the guy’s minting money - it’s his to use/abuse.
Sorry ,khoofia, I do not buy that. With freedom comes responsibility. No amount of money gives you the freedom to perpetuate ethnic stereotyping in advertising to sell more of your product . That holds true for Gupta, Abercrombie and Fitch, a beer manufacturer - whatever
but runa - what’s the ethnic stereotype here. We DO talk like that… especially in my ‘hood of 1st gen immigrants.
the key thing is the chinese is a successful entrepreneur and the indian is a sales guy who’s usually alphadog type of person in an org. this is not unknow. even local ikea radio ads poke fun at the svedish accent. it’s self-deprecating but not as crass as gupta - but still, i think this is fair game.
i’m just saying i didnt find them offensive. when i said he can use his money, i meant that in the sense of using his money to do something tasteless. bigotry is not acceptable, but then i dont consider this bigotry.
btw - gupta’s wiki entry says he is from an iit which totally brings down his cachet with me. he seems all milquetoast to me now .
Come on, dude, you hear an accurate accent? I’m revoking your desi ID stat.
i honestly thought ramesh had an interesting accent.
hey! i cant help not being offended. just telling it how i feel. that the top salesguy in a compny is an accented desi is a pretty huge ethnic stereotype busting btw.
I agree with khoofia overall. It’s one thing to deliberately use the accent to demean, ridicule and, er, denigrate someone.
But it’s quite another when the accent is incidental (as it is with Ramesh) or when the joke is on the premise that accents increase your pick-up probability (they actually do, for many Italians and Brits and some Latinos I’ve personally known).
The panda ad could have worked without an accent (which was, however, neither particularly strong in it nor used to derive humor in and of itself). But kudos to the ad designers for using an actual real panda name in the ad.
Let’s not pretend accents don’t exist, or ask that they never occur in media and ads - even when the people being represented would have them in real life. That’s not political correctness. That’s someone crying ‘Wolf!’ with wool over their eyes.
This is an old argument. Suffice it to say that if you didn’t grow up in America subject to the fake-ass Apu accent, you may be blind to it, and insensitive to a certain strain of anti-Indian racism in Americana.
I’d add that if you can’t tell a crude, slapdash racist parody from the accent itself, there’s nothing much to be done for you.
Wait. Manish, I was with you totally on the Apu accent, and what it meant, and how bad it was, and all the effects it was and is having. I’ve had that thrown back at me, and I didn’t ‘grow’ up in America.
I think this is different, that’s all.
WE DO NOT SOUND LIKE THAT!
Btw, why are comments closing early on other posts?
That accent doesn’t sound like anyone I know. I didn’t even realize Apu was supposed to be Indian the first Simpsons’ episode I saw (in India).
I don’t get this. He is withdrawing the panda ad because he got lots of complaints, but he wants to continue with the Indian ad because not as many people complained? If he realized that people thought both ads were offensive, shouldn’t he pulling them both?
Just goes to show that he who complains loudest gets his way..
WordPress is still borked. Waiting until y’all go to bed before I reinstall.
borked?
Now i really feel old :-)
i am trying to see the debate from your pov’s - runa, manish, golfast - but the accent honestly flew under the radar. from where i sit, [and i sell, do bizdev - though not all the time], the pureplay salesperson is the guy with the biggest dick in an organization [think siebel, ellison, ballmer, jobs, khosla etc type of personalities]. they are also the most vulnerable in an organization and most answerable for numbers. i’ve known two sales people in my career to have nervous breakdowns because the pressure is that intense. the first was quite traumatic to me. it was my first year in the org out of uni and it’s hard seeing an older person go into a gibbering frenzy and start bawling in the middle of the day. 1st gen desis typically do not get into this line of work unless they dont have a choice [real estate brokers in canada are one example] because it isnt a stable job and it’s more geared to people who have extensive networks or tremendous skills that combine empathy, sexiness, persistence, persuasiveness, brutishness, connivingness, ballsy et. so, to me it a breakthrough ad and the accent didnt really register because this is moving to the top of the food chain.
So! for someone who’s not familiar with this part of an organization, i can see why you found it grating. but there’s another angle to it and i wanted to provide that perspective.
khoofia,
Thanks for your well thought out answer- I understand where you are coming from BUT:
I did - ( Biz dev) as did many first gens in my earlier job for a few years here. There were many first gens at that employer in sales, biz dev and higher up the executive chain from different places in India . Not ONE of us sounded like the guy in the ad
Its not that I pretend that accents don’t exist - as chachaji said above- I have one myself - but honestly that “Apu” accent was totally over the top.Its incorrect and it offended me with its gratuitous use in the salesgenie ad.I do agree that its nice to see desis shown in “non typical” roles - no issues with that. But the fact that this ad was created by an Indian is just a bit too much to bear. I guess this is impasse !
As a devout Hindu, I am deeply offended that pandas are considered iconic to China, but humans, not cows, are chosen for a bad Indian accent.
Can’t temple bulls moo some product?
I thought the Pandas were great, but the accents were so noticably bad, al la Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s that it just hit me like a load of bricks. I didn’t see the Indian ad, but there was a local auto dealer used a fake “Iraqi” accent to do a spoof on the Iraqi Information Director, and it was also incredibly offensive, especially because it sounded more Indian than Iraq (and this is to me, who can’t tell the difference between an Indian and Pakistani [apparantly I'm supposed to be able to]).
Anyway, I agree that sometimes it better to just let things go, and if it was a non-desi doing this I probably would just chalk it up to ignorance and move on with my life (as I did with the auto dealer ad). But for some reason, I expect other desis, especially ones in positions of power and noteriety to be decent people, citizens, and representatives of lesser browns since as a “new” minority, we are really setting the tone for how we are to be perceived for generations to come. Maybe it would have been ok to do the Indian one (self-deprecation), but desi racism really, really bugs me and the panda add just reaked of it.
Ok, I’m dropping it now ;)