These advertisements outraged viewers, especially those of Indian and Chinese origin, who were understandably peeved that such crude racial stereotypes found their way onto the largest television stage in the country. What makes this incident even more of a travesty is that only one of the commercials has been withdrawn, and neither Salesgenie nor the ads’ producer, Vinod Gupta, have faced any punitive action—not even a slap on the wrist from the FCC. While there is no need to call for the heads of the producers at this point, some substantive action is needed to address this intolerable on-air insult. If nothing concrete happens, it risks becoming simply another area of complaint on the part of our country’s political correctness police, rather than a legitimate cause for concern and examination of what sort of material we allow on television screens.
That Gupta, who wrote and developed both commercials, is half-Indian and half-Jewish should be immaterial to the substance of this controversy. What should matter are the sensibilities of the racial groups slurred. An offensive ad about African Americans would, one imagines, face extremely harsh public and institutional reaction. So too would a piece mocking Hispanics. Just last year, a Snickers Super Bowl commercial was cut because of homophobic implications.
True, other minority groups face offensive references in popular culture. Homophobic jokes subtly remain in the most innocent shows we watch on TV. Don Imus’ triumphant return to radio after his disparaging comments about black women is shameful enough as an example of our lethargic progress in the area of societal inclusion. But the Salesgenie incident denotes not merely slow progress but outright inattention to the sensibilities of a certain race. Clearly, racist slurs against Asians are less common and less harsh than, say, during World War II and the Vietnam War. Nevertheless, there seems to be minimal guilt in offending Eastern ethnicities that are still considered “foreign” or un-American.
It will be very tricky to prevent a similarly offensive ad in the future. It would be extremely difficult to prove that the ads were explicitly racist, and a Chinese or Indian advocacy group would have trouble getting a favorable verdict in a libel lawsuit against Salesgenie. The cancelled commercial on Ling Ling’s Bamboo Furniture could simply be defended as an ad about an adorable family of pandas who happen to have a Chinese accent because, incidentally, pandas are native to China. “The pandas are Chinese,” said Gupta to The New York Times. “They don’t speak German.” Indeed, the ad doesn’t declare that Asian people are inferior in any way. So where exactly does the danger lie?
The inherent threat lies in the exposure given these hurtful stereotypes. The ads were not mere comedy sketches performed at a back-alley stand-up club, but Super Bowl commercials meant for the world to see. If a certain race or nationality is portrayed as utterly ridiculous in something we are expected to watch on national TV, in a way that exploits completely fictionalized perceptions of that race’s characteristics, we send the message that members of the mocked race remain outsiders to American society. Given the lack of response to these slurs against Asians, which would have undoubtedly resulted in a great furor if directed at another minority, we have experienced a huge setback in the progress that our nation has made in internalizing the values of civil rights. Such a regression, even in a form as cute as a panda cartoon, must not be allowed to slip under the radar and ought to be handled with stricter regulations and harsher public reaction. Both ads ought to be cancelled, especially the one about Ramesh, the Indian salesman, as it is the more explicitly racist of the two. Also, the FCC needs to enforce stricter rules governing on-air content, so Americans know that there are indeed consequences to publicizing disrespectful advertisements on national TV.
I am not advocating that Vinod Gupta be branded with a scarlet “R” for racism. After Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction a few years ago, the last thing we need is another case of Super Bowl outrage overkill. Rather, American bureaucracy, media and citizenry, need to be more discerning of what is respectful to the sensibilities of all of our nation’s ethnicities. Only then can we prevent the marginalization of two entire ethnicities on one of the largest public stages of the year, and move toward greater societal inclusiveness.