|
From SeeingBlack.com Letters
Here I will provide a summary of the commercial: Brandy, a White female, enters a club and desires to enter the VIP section. Near the doorway of VIP, however, is the “girl with the bionic butt cheeks” who, the camera suggests, notices Brandy and begins to dance with hip and rear-end swaying motions. The camera then presents a close up of her “bionic butt cheeks,” superimposing an x-ray of the mechanical work in the her rear onto the outside of her pants. Next, Brandy texts a message to her friend in VIP that she is “taking care of biz-BRT” and informs the DJ to play “Alaskan tankah music” that Charlie Murphy notes is “the world’s fastest music.” With the new music in rotation, the girl with the bionic butt cheeks attempts to dance to the music’s rhythm to no avail. Her butt malfunctions, she shrieks, falls face down onto the floor with her rear end smoking (obviously short circuited), while Brandy coolly steps over her into the VIP section. Charlie Murphy’s last words are “and finally, a quick chirp to maintenance to clean all that butt up off the floor.” Surely it does not take such an advertisement to sell prepaid cell phone services during Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim time slot, which is when I viewed the commercial. But it does take thoughts insensitive to the history and humanity of women of African descent to expect, as the marketing team for this commercial does, that the viewers of Adult Swim would be amused. They must think that viewers will want to purchase Boost Mobile’s services because the commercial suggests that Black women are not entirely human but cybernetic objects. Furthermore, the commercial also suggests that the major reason why Black women get into VIP is due to their unnatural mechanical behinds, however, the “competition” (as Charlie Murphy notes) with the proper technology walks in VIP confident with all human qualities in tact. The cyborg idea is also indulged through the Alaskan Tankah Music acting as a type of anti-virus software that Brandy uses to remove the big “ass” virus from interrupting her plans. It works for “the girl with the bionic butt cheeks” cannot comprehend the rhythms of this music, the music changes from a hip hop beat to a very high speed synthetic drum suggesting that the Black female body is not versatile and that the Black female body can not be familiar with, adjust to, or choose not to dance to “the world’s fastest music.” Equally important is that the Black female is identified by her rear-end—“the girl with the bionic butt cheeks”—while her White counterpart has a name, Brandy. This difference clearly emphasizes the blatant objectification of the Black female body. There is no cognizance of her humanity. Appearing lifeless after she falls to the floor, shrieking with her rear smoking, maintenance is called to “clean all that butt up off the floor” and Brandy steps over her going into VIP. While some may suggests that this commercial should not be taken seriously because of its comic nature, in recent times the seriousness of comic representations did force Dave Chappelle to question and leave his role as a comedian on his highly successful Chappelle’s Show and Michael Richards, (Kramer of the sitcom Seinfeld), faced the fallout from his lack of craft and lack of knowledge concerning racial comedy and racism. (Indeed, such offensive performances or outbursts could be considered illegal “anti-social behavior” in the United Kingdom.) Yes, comedy is subjective but there is an element of tragedy when the unexpected element of humor becomes the unfunny feature of bad taste. © Copyright by SeeingBlack.com |
