Comments on: Cute Monkey Selling Phones or Racist Depiction of Obama

by: Steve

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:37:31 +0000

In my opinion, all politicians are monkeys.

Also, to the alleged Mr. Richard Kim up there, a recent poll found that the Japanese are actually more interested in our presidential race than you might think. Somewhere around the lines of 60% polled said they had been following it.

You want sources? How ’bout yo’ momma!

by: test » Blog Archive » Cute Monkey Selling Phones or Racist Depiction of Obama

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:47:13 +0000

[…] Cute Monkey Selling Phones or Racist Depiction of Obama unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptBut most of us readily associate “change” with Obama. Blacks have been portrayed as monkeys in racist cartoons and comics here in America so it’s easy to associate the monkey with Obama and therefore conclude that this is a racist … […]

by: Fm

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:28:37 +0000

This just look like a spoof on his campaign and I cant see the correlation between him and the monkey.Change the slogan and it could be any one.With the crying u can compare it to Hillary to.You have to stretch it to even come off raciest.I mean terrorist fist bump level of stretching.I have read stuff that might seem raciest from japan but that a matter of perspective and culture differences.

by: kindless

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:41:47 +0000

I didn’t even see the Monkey as Obama… And honestly I’m more racist on my own.

by: Richard "Pocky" Kim

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:29:05 +0000

To be honest, most of Japan cares not one bit who wins the U.S. election. If they watch the news, they might know who Obama and McCain are, but even then, they don’t care.

This was probably done with the idea of “hey, a monkey in a suit would be awesome!” and not “let’s lampoon U.S. politics”.

Ignorance, while not entirely forgivable, is still not malice.

by: Devin

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:36:03 +0000

this reminds me of those international sony PSP ads where they had the white and black versions portrayed dramatically by white and black models… like you said, jam, sometimes a cute monkey is just a cute monkey…

it’s not like they had sambo selling phones, ya know? heck, i don’t think they’d disrespect Obama when that small Japanese town with the same name went nuts for him during the primaries!

by: VonKraut

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:07:44 +0000

Bush was portrayed as a monkey all the time. If it is supposed to be Obama portrayed as a monkey it’s racist all of a sudden because he’s black? This argument has about as much wait saying the Urku Kai in LOTR are racist. Arguments like this seem to stem from people who tend to consider themselves not racist then when they see this the first thing they think are OMG monkeys are like black ppl!

by: greg

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:07:19 +0000

Here’s to hoping the Japanese never get around to watching any American commercials that aren’t meant to be released in Japan. Same for pretty much every other country.

by: Max

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:47:58 +0000

Well I think you can only go so far as to try and protect the feelings of others. If they did have innocent intentions, then it’s just America blowing steam over small things, as usual. I don’t see how an intentional racist remark could help anyone in a marketing campaign. I mean look at Sony.

by: My new WordPress MU Site » Blog Archive » Cute Monkey Selling Phones or Racist Depiction of Obama

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:43:24 +0000

[…] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptBut most of us readily associate “change” with Obama. Blacks have been portrayed as monkeys in racist cartoons and comics here in America so it’s easy to associate the monkey with Obama and therefore conclude that this is a racist … […]