Sony's Racially charged ads

[Sir Realism]

Sorry if you saw this before too (probably).

This would have probably been put in the shoutbox but w/e.

http://www.joystiq.com/media/2006/07...g_ad_large.jpg

[lemmywinks]

one word for that: duh.

what the hell were they thinking!?!?! It doesn't offend me, but gee, you can kinda feel the storm brewing already huh?

The way sonys been acting, you'd think they were all drunk... or just plain stupid.

[ShadowMarth]

CAD had a lot to say about this.

Now at first glance, this stands to be a pretty offensive advertisement. That was my first reaction, definitely. However it's important to keep in mind that this advertisement isn't running in the US. It's a campaign over in Europe (Holland, if I recall correctly?) only. Why is that? Maybe because here in America we have such a history of racial tension, a history of slavery, an issue that divided our country in two in the face of war. So maybe it seems like a pretty harsh image to us, because we're extra sensitive to that sort of thing, perhaps out of shame, due to that part of our nation's history. (I'm not saying racism doesn't exist elsewhere around the world, but I'm not from elsewhere around the world, so I can't vouch for the feelings of different cultures.)

But the advertisement wasn't meant for us (America). It's probably not a mistake that Sony isn't running that particular campaign in the US. They may have felt it was more likely to be misinterpreted here. So I'm not sure I can condemn them as insensitive just because we Americans are so particularly prone to get our hackles up over things like this. It would sort of be like getting offended that a billboard in Japan is in Japanese, and I can't understand it.

http://www.cad-comic.com/news.php?i=1153