Uh…Duncan Hines? Really, Duncan Hines?
Yeah, they pulled the ad. But seriously, nobody looking at this thought, “Jesus Chrimbus, are those cupcakes wearing blackface?”
Yep, we’re a post-racial America, all right.
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Honestly, my first thought was that they ripped off the singing slugs from “Flushed Away.” LOL!
There is a kind of obliviousness at work here, to which I am apparently also prey. I fully did not see the problem until I read the word “blackface.”
Of course, now I can’t not see it. *facepalm*
So the black cupcakes wouldn’t sing with the white one, but when it turned black they would? WTF? Even the damn cupcakes themselves are racist!
To be fair, Ron, the white cupcake couldn’t sing in tune until it put on blackface. I can hardly blame the other performers for their reticence.
Hm. I just listened to that again. And then I re-ran the section where the white cupcake joined in. They were pretty dissonant before the white cupcake started up and I didn’t notice that the bass line he added was any more out of tune/dissonant than what was going on before. Hey, a capella singing is something I have a little expertise in. Over a 22-hour period this weekend I spent two hours Saturday night singing Christmas carols going door-to-door in a shopping mall with my concert choir (for which we got collectively paid $500) and then sang Lessons and Carols for two different parishes on Sunday (morning for my parish and afternoon w/my concert choir). The Saturday before my concert choir sang Christmas carols in a local downtown Christmas festival and next Sunday we’ll sing a concert for a parish.
People talk about what Christmas means to them. For me, even in my youngest days, Christmas has always meant music.
Besides which, how often have I been told here that perceptions and appearances are of great importance when dealing with racism? Those are a bunch of RACIST DAMN CUPCAKES! I can see where this is a horrible example for the children. Good thing Duncan Hines killed this off.
Yes, blackface is pretty damned racist.
I don’t necessarily read this as blackface, so much as just the stereotype that black people are more musical (as more athletic, etc). The white cupcake can’t sing (and clearly is indicated by the form of the commercial, as well as the musical line, not to be able to sing; one wonders if RonF is, perhaps, tone deaf), but then add black frosting and voila! Well, everyone knows white cupcakes can’t jump.
I am entirely prepared to accept that the blackface resonances (which are clear in the animation style, and combination with minstrel imagery) are an unintended epiphenomenon of creating the above narrative. That doesn’t mean the blackface resonances doesn’t exist or are inoffensive, but I think the core of the commercial is different–and still racist, though perhaps not in a way that would have been as easily recognized, since “positive” stereotyping doesn’t have the same emotional tug.
Maybe it’s just that I’ve sung a fair number of close harmonies where dissonances are present.
How about this – would you consider the concept of “White cupcakes/people can’t sing” as racist?
Yes. I agree with both Mandolin @8 (kind of) and RonF @9 (kind of). I think the blackface was an unfortunate by product of an otherwise nicely done transformation commercial. My guess is that the (most likely white) writer(s) held no awareness of the implications in their mind(s). But it is definitely there.
Where I differ is in what the racist assumption is. I don’t think that there’s a stereotype that white people can’t sing. We do have, after all, iconic white singers in the likes of Janis Joplin, Justin Bieber, and on and on. Does anybody really think that all white people are incapable of carrying a tune, Mormon Tabernacle Choir? I think that the racist assumption is that all black people can sing well. I didn’t know that one existed until I started hearing it fairly regularly about 13 years ago.
Seems more like an instance of privilege (“we had no idea this would be considered racist, because we don’t have to live that reality”) than intentional racism.
So racist but in a different way.
“I think that the racist assumption is that all black people can sing well”
Yeah, good point.
I’d vote for both, myself. Sure, I’ve heard of white people who can sing well. And dance. And black people who can’t do either. We’re not talking reality here, we’re talking stereotypes. “Black people sure can dance” is as racist as “White people can’t sing”. Actually, I’m familiar with the “All black people can dance” meme but not “All black people can sing.”
Yeah, but there is not stereotype, AFAIK, that white people can’t sing. There is, however, a stereotype about how well black people sing. Just google “all blacks can sing” and then google “all whites can’t sing”. Note the difference in the kind of links you find.
So, no, you can’t meet your goal of brushing this aside as equally racist.