Where is it that we start drawing the line between non-serious storytelling and promoting stereotypes?
On my Twitter timeline recently, I came across yet another tale of advertising adventure gone sour. The said ad film for Mountain Dew, created by rapper Tyler, The Creator was meant to be funny. But the fact that it shows a beat up white woman identifying her abuser from a lineup of African-American men had the viewers crying "racist!".
Tyler and PepsiCo have withdrawn the ad, apologised and taken full responsibility for it. But they have also said that it was a coincidence that the men in the lineup were all Tyler's friends from the American hip-hop collective Odd Future, who all just happen to be, well, "black"! And yet again, the explanation said, "it was taken out of context"
This is just another example of the ever-increasing gap between the speaker and the audience. Are the speakers becoming more insensitive, or are the listeners becoming more intolerant? Come to think of it. Tyler is of African descent himself. Wouldn't any intended racism in that ad have hit him home while making it? Also, who were the viewers of the ad that found it offensive? How many of them were African-American and found it too close to a reality they live with everyday? How many of them were “white” and were not comfortable with being shown a situation that they wouldn’t like to be in for fear of being accused a “racist”?
One of the biggest problems we have in all forms of media is people taking offence at what they perceive as a jibe at them. Representation of women, religious communities, sects or even a single person causes hue and cry. Look at the whole issue that Kamal Haasan’s film Vishwaroopam raked up. Or how we say a certain filmmaker’s work promotes violence and provokes people to pick up guns and shoot one another. Are we saying we have lost the ability to differentiate between what is real and what is fiction? How come we do not mimic the other filmmaker’s on-screen world where everyone in the family gets together for all occasions and sings and dances with 100 extras in tow?
Yes, the media is a tool that should be used to promote everything goody-goody. But media also reflects reality. Not everything in reality is hunky dory. Evils exist, crimes happen and people are, sometimes, really bad. So it is also up to the media to expose these realities. And the reality too differs from person to person -- obviously being influenced by past experiences, prejudices, education and upbringing. And the same holds true for our reactions to Tyler’s ad for Pepsi.
History has unfortunately played a huge part in forming stereotypes for communities. Stereotypes were built around reality. Most of them are not relevant any more, but sadly they still influence our discretion and judgment. It’s best to leave history in the past.
The more you bring these topics into discussion, and especially on the latest and most fashionable forum of expressing outrage -- social media -- the more attention they get, prompting them to be more in our face. Any publicity, after all, is publicity and where ads work on the principle of recall value rather than favourable response, ignoring them and letting them die a natural and quick death will be a better way of tackling them. Expressing anger and disappointment and each of us dedicating 10 tweets to them will just help them trend.
