Monday, February 6, 2012

Classy Ad

I skipped the Super Bowl for the most part (I heard it was pretty good at the end), but I caught a few of the commercials. Some were amusing and some were not, but being in Florida I missed one that’s running in Michigan for the U.S. Senate race there that is just plain racist.

The campaign of former Rep. Peter Hoekstra for U.S. Senate explained a racially charged Super Bowl advertisement they developed – complete with an Asian actress speaking in broken English – as a reflection of China’s increasingly competitive education system.

The campaign of the Michigan Republican hit racial notes as a new advertisement argued that the policies of incumbent Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) were helping China to the detriment of the United States.

The advertisement, which will run in Michigan during the Super Bowl and afterward, features an Asian female with a conical straw hat riding a bike through a rice paddy field.

“Your economy get very weak. Ours get very good [sic],” the actress says, in broken English.

“Thank you Michigan Senator Debbie ‘Spend-it-now’. Debbie spend so much American money [sic],” the actress says, without a Chinese accent. “You borrow more and more, from us… we take your jobs. Thank you Debbie ‘Spend-it-now.’”

The Hoekstra campaign called the advertisement “satirical” and explained the broken English in the video as a reflection of China’s increasingly competitive education system.

The first rule of being “satirical” is that if you have to explain that it is satire, it’s not. Also, using cultural stereotypes doesn’t make it “racially charged.” It’s just racist, even if you’re trying to say something nice about the Chinese.

I hope Hoekstra gets his ass whipped.