Bob Garfield of Ad Age magazine says that the new Right Guard commercial starring Warren Sapp as a guy with, well, aroma issues represents good news for American blacks. Garfield says the plethora of comical figures in TV commercials who happen to be black—from the disoriented pop singer (”Hello, Detroit!”) in the Southwest Air commercials to the perpetually constipated husband in the Halley’s MO commercials—suggests that U.S. blacks are becoming empowered enough to be made fun of like everybody else. According to Garfield this new “gloves-off” treatment suggests that black America-- although not fully ‘arrived’ just yet—is a lot further along than it was just a few years ago when it would have been considered “insensitive” to make a black actor the butt of a TV pitchman’s joke. I suppose we’ll know that American blacks have reached full equality when every TV sitcom features a black actor playing the crude, dull-witted, puerile Dad of the house.
September 18, 2003 5:28 AM
