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based on a true story | by maryann johanson

it ain’t easy being Clooney, racist KFC ad, more: leftover links

Sun Jan 10 2010, 03:38pm | 6 comments

Every week my browser gets cluttered up with tabs for stuff that I stumble across and figure I might be able to use as a Question of the Day or a WTF Thought for the Day or grist for some other post. And inevitably, I end the week with most of that material unused. But it just occurred to me that there’s no reason to let this stuff go to waste: I can share it with you all each weekend, and start the new week with a clean slate.

So, herewith the first batch of leftover links, in no particular order:
‘The 40 Year Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It’ is Sadly Real and Has a Trailer

Brilliant trailer for nonexistent sci-fi TV series (maybe NSFW)

KFC Knows How to Put White Guys at Ease

Stars of Sky’s Ten Minute Tales speak volumes despite silence

Disney’s Philip K. Dick Animated CG Movie Has Been Shelved?

The Geek Beat: Why We Do What We Do

What storytelling risks could Avatar have taken?

‘The Thing’ Prequel Set to Film in March

Kevin Smith Explains How ‘A Couple of Dicks’ Became ‘Cop Out’

Most pirated shows of 2009: Someone’s still watching ‘Heroes’

Lost’s ‘Last Supper’: Battlestar, Sopranos were 1st

Where should James Cameron take Avatar next?

Being Clooney: Not as Easy as It Looks



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easter eggs
  • Shaun

    Between the KFC ad and the Indian student attacks, Australia must seem like a pretty scummy place right now.

    For what its worth though, the african american fried chicken stereotype is not well known here. The largest black population are the aboriginals followed (Im guessing) by nigerian immigrants. Unfortunately there are aboriginal stereo types, but none I’m aware of involve chicken.

    It doesn’t excuse a stupid ad by marketers that should have known better, but that may explain why so many (presumably Australian) people on the net are defending an ad for a faceless multinational corporation. We’re not all bad!

  • Muzz

    There really isn’t any racial component to the ‘racist’ ad unless you’re american.
    It’s about being stuck in the wrong crowd at the cricket. That’s it.
    Indeed, its joke about the vast contrast in how West Indian fans behave v. cricketing tradition has had far more to do with class and any controversy over it in Australia was dismissed as stuffy nonsense 20 years ago.

    The controversy over the ad is pretty funny and illustrates wonderfully how apparently similar cultures can actually be vastly different.

  • MaryAnn

    We’re not all bad!

    I don’t think anyone is reading that ad and interpreting it to mean that Australians are bad. It’s the ad agency and KFC whom we see as bad. :->

  • Kenny

    The controversy over the KFC ad is understandable in the USA, but I genuinely think it’s wrong to consider it racist.

    The stereotype of black people subsisting on fried chicken from KFC exists solely in the United States… no such stereotype exists in Australia or the UK. (Perhaps it does in Canada, I’m not sure)

    The ad is a jokey reference to fining yourself in the wrong group of fans at a cricket game… the West Indian fans are famously unconventional compared to everybody else.

    Another thing I noticed in the US the last time I visited was that you don’t really do travelling support for sports games. Everybody else does, and that was another thing that the ad was attempting to represent.

    Out of its context, viewed on You Tube by Americans, it does absolutely look like a racist attack… if the ad agency failed at anything, it was not considering how the ad would be percieved in the US (despite that not being the intended broadcast location)

  • Kenny

    (When I say wrong group of fans.. I mean, “the other team’s fans”)

  • Kenny

    MAJ, I picked this link out from one of the pages you linked. I don’t know if you’ve seen it already, but it’s by an astrophysicist who grades Cameron (very favourably) on Avatar’s science. (The updates at the bottom made good reading)

    I’m a bit surprised that he didn’t pick up on Pandora having an oxygen atmosphere right away though….. Hometree burned pretty well.

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