Entries Tagged 'Advertising' ↓

The Simpsons Go Blackface?: In Ad For Their African Edition, Homer, Marge, and the Kids MASSIVE FAIL.

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The Simpsons is America’s longest-running sitcom, with 441 episodes shown since 1989. (Their 20th season begins next month.)

But for their upcoming debut on Africa’s digital satellite television service, DStv, an Angolan ad agency decided to give the saffron-colored family a “makeover.”

6a00d8358081ff69e2011570465543970c-800wiThose are the results, above, says the UK’s Telegraph: “Brown skin instead of their usual yellow,” right.

As the publication details:

To make them appear more like a typical Angolan family, Marge has also been given a black Afro hairstyle instead of normal blue bouffant, while Lisa’s hair is stood up on end in short braids.

The image also shows the family dressed in clothes bearing traditional African designs and they are all wearing flip flops.

To be clear, this change was not made to the actual animation, but to print advertising being shown in the broadcast area.

Will Angolans be offended? Actor Kirstie Alley once told me that African-Americans…are “more free and fun and light hearted” than white people. Did she mean Africans, too?

Let’s hope so, and let’s trust they won’t be put off, here, by dumb, cloying marketing at its worst, and, in so doing, avoid what’s still a very funny show.

China: You’re next.

[via alltop.com]

The Alien Within.

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James Cameron has not directed a feature film in a dozen years. However, his last was 1997’s Titanic, still the all-time box-office champ, at $1.8 billlion grossed worldwide. That means there are enormous hopes riding on his upcoming December release, Avatar. That, a quarter-billion-dollar budget, and one swivvy advance poster, above. And this teaser trailer.

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Sex & Megaviolence.

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I’m about in the middle of Cormac McCarthy’s utterly blighted, comfortless novel, The Road. Perhaps that’s why the trailer, above top, for Denzel Washington’s post-apocalyptic, January 2010 The Book of Eli, directed by the Hughes Brothers, comes off to me as stagey; pure movie, in whole. (To be fair, however, I might have the same response to The Road‘s trailer, at which I’ve refused to look until I finish the book.)

Meanwhile, I’m completely taken with the breathy declarations and lush sartorial chroma of Jane Campion’s bodice-ripper, Bright Star, below top; out September 18. It’s the story of poet John Keats, who died at 25 from tubercolosis, but not before both rewriting the DNA of English verse, and hardily bedding his next-door neighbor, the aptly-named Fanny Brawne.

So, what gives? I mean, I’m a sucker for the apocalypse. Have I gone soft in my middle age? You tell me.

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That’s a Huge Sandwich Yer Holdin’.

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Am I the only person who thinks there might be something phallic going on in Yankee CC Sabathia’s and Met Johan Santana’s Big Chipotle Cheesesteak commercial for Subway?

screen2That is, the fast food chain would have us believe, with the ad, they’re only marketing “a toasted tower of juicy steak and melted cheese, topped with peppers, onions, and spicy chipotle southwest sauce,” right.

But check out the positioning and angle of the sandwiches between their open legs—which never changes—the lighting, and even the “circumcised cut” at the exposed end of the bread.

Plus, follow the dialogue, as two pinnacles of Black masculine physicality trade locker room talk about how “big” the meaty cylinder between their legs is. One almost gets the indelicate impression that Doctor’s Associates, Subway’s parent company, is selling more than sustenance. Hey: It wouldn’t be the first time.

How big is it?, asks Subway. You decide. Watch the ad, below.

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So You Think You Can Dance?

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I’m so tired of TV commercials with dancing by wack b-boys. But in this spot for T-Mobile’s Sidekick LX, music, editing, and, especially, performances work together to create something truly outrageous. You may have seen the 30-second version of this ad on TV. That’s the 1-minute take, above. Get down.

Blame It On Jamie Foxx.

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law_abiding_citizenWhoa: Check out this dramatic, new teaser poster, above, from Jamie Foxx’s upcoming thriller with 300‘s Gerard Butler, right, Law-Abiding Citizen.

In the story, notes IMDB.com,

An everyday guy [Butler] decides to take justice into his own hands after a plea bargain sets his family’s killers free. His target: The district attorney [Foxx] who orchestrated the deal.

Directed by F. Gary Gray (Set It Off; The Negotiator; The Italian Job), Law-Abiding Citizen breaks the rules on October 16th.

[via impawards.com]

Jive Talkin’.

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I get invited to a number of movie press screenings, mostly for medium-budget, high-quality, serious “art” films. When I received the notice for political satire In the Loop, right, I looked at the image embedded _12402676236557in the press release, said, “James Gandolfini as a general? Feh!” Ignored it. (That’s not him, above, but actor Peter Capaldi, who, in this transatlantic piece, plays Malcolm Tucker, the British prime minister’s director of communications.)

What a mistake. I still haven’t seen the movie, but I wish the publicist had sent me the trailer, cause I’d have been there in a minute. In the Loop‘s promo is one of the best, funniest, and most expertly edited I’ve ever seen. It perfectly conveys the film’s Wag the Dog, geopolitical-comedy-of errors, Babel-speak theme with deftness and hilarity that makes the short a must-watch-again. Check it out below, or, as I always prefer, in Apple Quicktime.

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I’m a New (Mad) Man.

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When I noticed a lot of my fellow Twitterers sporting stylish, 1960s-style customized avatars, I asked how they were doing this.

I was quickly turned on to MadMen Yourself. It’s a promotional site for MadMen, AMC’s hit series about randy ad execs in JFK’s America. (Season 3 of the award-winning drama starts August 16.)

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Racially Slurred Speech.

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Is this series of billboards, above, coupled to a complementary set of commercials by the same company, below, racist?

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Wow: That’s, Uh, Quite a Mouthful.

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We’ve covered fellatio-inspired ads before, here, on MEDIA ASSASSIN. However, this print piece, above, offering to “blow” Burger King’s “Super Seven Incher” into the wide-open mouth of a customer is so perfectly awful that, as I post it, I’m actually still wondering if it’s real. (This other picture of it seems to suggest its veracity, however.)

As the amazing copyranter.com clarifies,

this ad via Singapore for the BK Super Seven Incher is the new leading “most overtly blow-jobby ad” I’ve ever seen, surpassing this one, this one, and even this one. Nice misogynistic touch making the woman look like a f%#@ing blow-up doll.

Meanwhile, a word to Gaviscon: Selling your white, thick, creamy, heartburn medicine on the promise that it will cool your insides “like a fireman came in your mouth” is going to really narrow your audience.

[via BuzzFeed.com]