Were Sales Genie’s Super Bowl Ads Offensive?
Ah, Super Bowl Sunday. An afternoon of tailgating, cheering, and offensive commercials. This year though, the offenses weren’t aimed at homosexuals or women. For that matter, it’s unclear if the offenses were even offensive. A full day after Sales Genie’s are-they-or-aren’t-they racist commercials aired during the big game, not a single cultural group has spoken out about them. Were the ads, featuring an Indian salesman with seven kids, along with a pair of anthropomorphic pandas speaking in ridiculous Asian accents, politically incorrect or not? And what about Bud Light’s accent commercial, featuring the African dude and his chicken? Portfolio magazine’s media critic Jeff Bercovici spoke with a spokesman for OCA, an Asian-Pacific Americans advocacy group, who said, “We found [the Sales Genie ads] 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.” But no response yet.
