Thankfully, it appears that the Six Flags chain has retired last year’s version of its current ad campaign, the extensive run of which led me to write the following post on my blog, MEDIA ASSASSIN.
—Harry Allen
I’m surprised Racialicious hasn’t picked this apart, yet: Six Flags’ “More Flags, More Fun!” campaign, and its English-gargling Asian pitchman.
Who comes up with this crap [and, typically, this is where many people would insert the words "in 2008"]?
But I’ve long concluded that white supremacy is not receding, but refining; futuristic. Year-dates, thus, become merely a way of organizing information, like tabs in a filing cabinet drawer, not markers, necessarily, of “progress.”
As may be obvious, “More Flags” is easily the worst depiction of an Asian person I’ve seen in advertising recently, and perhaps ever. Interestingly, it comes on the tail of what I’d argue is the best depiction of an Asian person in a commercial: The coffee shop denizen / land speed racer from Washington “WaMu” Mutual’s “Salt Flats” piece, right.
One of the basic tests one has to run when looking at how people are portrayed, racially, in media is to ask, Would this still “make sense” if a person with a different racial classification was in this role?
“Make sense” doesn’t just mean narratively. It can also mean historically, legally, socially, or traditionally.
So, Ikea’s 2002 “Moo Cow Milker” commercial, right, for example, fails this test, and does so blatantly and miserably. Make the white male non-white, and the non-white woman white. (Indeed, in that near post-9/11 era, make the white man a bearded Saudi.) For many white viewers, especially, the piece would cease to be advertising and enter the realm of endurance, bordering on assault.
Both words, ironically, may describe what Asian people, watching the Six Flags ad, feel. I’m not Asian, and I certainly do.
