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CASUE AND ECCEFT
Classic spelling trauma at the Grauniad, where a new Sony ad is “casuesing” great unrest.
Careful what material you’re posting there. Attracting a gaggle of lefty trolls from a post is one thing, but start getting into posting about anything that has to do with video games, and you’ll attract a far more dangerous species of troll: The video game console fanboy. All the vitriol and invective of the regular trolls with half the literacy (and that’s saying something.)
Whilst I think the smarties who came up with the ad are asking for trouble, it does remind me of this, from Spinal Tap:
BOBBI: They find it very offensive and very sexist.
IAN: Well what exactly…do you find offensive? I mean, what’s offensive?
BOBBI: Ian, you put a greased naked woman…
IAN: Yes…
BOBBI: ...on all fours…
IAN: Yes.
BOBBI: ...with a dog collar around her neck…
IAN: ...with a dog collar…
BOBBI: ...and a leash…
IAN: ...and a leash…
BOBBI: ...and a man’s arm extended out up to here holding onto the leash and pushing a black glove in her face to sniff it. You don’t find that offensive? You don’t find that sexist?
IAN: No I don’t, this is 1982, Bobbi, come on.
BOBBI: That’s right it’s 1982! Get out of the 60’s. We don’t have this mentality any more.
IAN: Well you should have seen the cover they wanted to do. It wasn’t a glove believe me.“Casu/Casue” struck me as an interesting phoneme pair… but I’ve been unable to unearth anything interesting.
Acronymfinder.com tells me that “CASU” is an “acronym” (!) for “casualty”, but it fails to provide any interesting evidence to support that idea. Mil-speak?
Dictionary.com tries to help with “casue”, asking “Did you really mean ‘CA SUE’” ?
Living in CAliforniastan, and feeling myself to be in the heartland of litigation, I click on “yes, I meant ‘CA SUE’”, only to get:
No entries found for “CA SUE”
Did you really mean “Cause”?*sigh*
I’m certain that in antedeluvian/prehistoric Latin, ‘casu’ meant “wombat”. Or “Margo Kingston”.
Or both.
Posted by zeppenwolf on 2006 07 07 at 03:56 AM • permalinkVexorg
All the vitriol and invective of the regular trolls with half the literacy (and that’s saying something.)
One of those turned up at LGF a couple of weeks back, using IM-speak. Until he decided that “mocking laughter” wasn’t quite the desired response, that is.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 07 07 at 04:41 AM • permalinkI can’t wait to get my hands on the new Sony HonkyStation.
Posted by Daniel San on 2006 07 07 at 05:40 AM • permalinkImagine the fuss if the ad was the reverse and
said ” black was coming” with a black model, overpowering a white model.Posted by Torontosteve on 2006 07 07 at 06:54 AM • permalinkImagine the fuss if the ad was the reverse and
said “ black was coming” with a black model, overpowering a white model.No one would bat an eye. Hell, I think most people would think it was either part of a rapper’s promotional campaign or a political campaign for Cynthia McKinney.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2006 07 07 at 07:03 AM • permalinkYou are right Rob. Only white people can be racists in the US. Even hinting something like a white version of Black History Month, the Black Pages (business directory), BET (Black Entertainment Television) or any of the countless others and you might as well put on the pointy white hat. The double-standard makes no sense to me at all.
#11 - I can imagine the ad if that’s any help.
I’m imagining it on a cinema screen… Black overpowers white, applying an aggressive embrace… White offers token resistance…
I’ve forgotten what they’re supposed to be selling. Does that matter?Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2006 07 07 at 07:14 AM • permalink#10 Tex,
LOL!. For making me laugh, I’m going to have a drink for you.” Zulus, thousands of ‘em…”.
Posted by Daniel San on 2006 07 07 at 08:06 AM • permalink13: Only white people can be racists in the US.
This puts me in mind of a mandatory “diversity” seminar I had to attend about 10 years ago (the most ghastly thing I have ever had to participate in; skipped most of it). It was conducted by a “diversity” expert with the improbable name of Napolean Peeples. He pretty much made that same assertion, to wit, that blacks in the U.S. couldn’t qualify as racists because they didn’t exercise significant political power (one of the most preposterous statements I’ve ever heard, btw). Someone made the excellent point that, during the Rodney King riots, they certainly exercised sufficient power in a localized area to kill or injure scores of innocent non-black people.
Importantly perhaps, the ads are for the European release of the white PSP and are appearing on billboards in Amsterdam rather than in the US where racial tension remains a fraught issue.
Oh yeah? Well I remember being in Amsterdam in the late 70’s a few months after Dutch marines stormed a train to rescue hostages from a Moluccan terrorist group. Amsterdam was plastered with graffiti in Dutch and English, the most polite of which said: Boot The Blacks!
Europeans have no sense of history. And they can’t soel.
#17 He pretty much made that same assertion, to wit, that blacks in the U.S. couldn’t qualify as racists because they didn’t exercise significant political power (one of the most preposterous statements I’ve ever heard, btw).
Paco, I had to attend a similar seminar at the university once and had to listen to the same bigoted drivel. The moderators were a Chinese-American man and an African-American woman, and came off IMO as a scam to sell books and seminars. It made me decide that the whole group-victim-identity movement was a load of crap that I need never heed again.
The publishing house where I work distributes a couple of small British publishers. Based on the typesetting and writing, illiteracy is winning handily in the UK. Maybe they should embrace Islam. Forcing everyone to write in indecipherable Arabic squiggles may be the only way to save their self-esteem.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 07 07 at 09:58 AM • permalink#11 Torontosteve et al,
There is a black overpowers white version of the ad. And there is a black and white fighting version.
This one is the fighting one, and this one is the black overpowering white version.
Isn’t it lovely how only one of the three ads causes a stir? These thing are like the old Spy vs. Spy comics from Mad. Sometimes the White spy wins, sometimes the Black one does.
Isn’t it lovely how only one of the three ads causes a stir? These thing are like the old Spy vs. Spy comics from Mad. Sometimes the White spy wins, sometimes the Black one does.
Well, yes and no. Those cartoons, which I loved, were clearly northern/eastern european types, i.e. white, who wore white and black clothes; there was no racial component whatsoever, and they fit into the mileau (or however the hell you spell that froggie term) of the cold war era. Only one is causing a stir because it was frankly the only one that was publicised; the others add their own unappealing elements.
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2006 07 07 at 11:27 AM • permalinkI can understand finding the ads unappealing, they certainly do not make me want to buy a PSP, either with the original black furniture, or the new white chassis, but I think the ad campaign is more a result of Sony’s vision for the ads, than some attempt at making racist imagery.
The positions of the two women in the three ads looks disturbing, certainly, but those positions are also very common in 2D and 3D fighting games. Those games are quite popular on that platform, and they also have outfits which tend to resemble those the models are wearing. Notice that both models are wearing fingerless leather gloves, which are common attire for characters ofJapanese fighting games.
I think a process similar to this might have evolved.
Sony Ex. A) It would be cool to have out old black chassis and new white chassis PSPs fighting.Sont Ex. B) Yeah. We could get some models, dress them in black or white outfits and get in poses like those from DOA.
Sony Ex. A) And we could have one ad where the old model wins, and one where the new one does.
I find it entirely possible a Japanese company, whose stated goal was to produce an ad campaign that was based on the colors of their product, did not see how the imagery would appear to non-Japanese. Remember we are all foreigners in their eyes. :)
Importantly perhaps, the ads are for the European release of the white PSP and are appearing on billboards in Amsterdam rather than in the US where racial tension remains a fraught issue.
And what exactly does is this ad supposed to tell us about b/w race relations in the EU? That racial tension issues aren’t fraught (is it just my American ears or is that one of the poorest sentence constructs ever)? That black Europeans know and accept their place? That Europeans, black and white, are so beyond this kind of bourgeois nonsense that they can kid around like this without repercussion? What?
Let me guess, EricWS, this version is for US release.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 07 07 at 12:09 PM • permalinkKyda,
I haven’t heard which, if any, of them was intended for US release. If Sony gets enough publicity, I would not be surprised if none of them end up here. Sony generally tries to avoid controversy, especially overseas. For example, there are more… risque games available for the Sony platforms in Japan than in the US. They want to be the Honda of home electronics: Good, bland, and marked up because of the name on the box. Controversy cuts into how they can mark up.
Although that picture would certainly not raise the ire of Jesse Jackson or the rest of the black “leadership” of America, it might raise the ire of the Fred Phelps types. And that might make it worth putting the picture up, if it gives that SOB a coronary.
Actually, the ads have raised the ire of black groups and liberals in the US.
Me, I don’t get it. It’s a series of 3 billboards in which it looks they are about to lez out more than anything else.
Posted by trancejeremy on 2006 07 07 at 05:01 PM • permalink
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