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Sure the "Super Bowl" is all about letting the best football team of the year really shine, but for folks watching at home it's all about the commercials.
Volkswagon is responsible for some of the most memorable Super Bowl ads of the past two years, including 2011's "The Force" featuring little Darth Vader. Last year's "The Dog Strikes Back" followed up on the success, watching a pooch with big dreams of chasing a car.
This morning, Volkswagen reveals their 2013 Super Bowl ad exclusively on "Starting Point." VW America's Tim Mahoney talks with Soledad O'Brien about the inspiration for the ad.
The ad features a man interacting around an office setting with a Jamaican accent, who then gets into a Volkswagen with other colleagues to find their 'happy.' The song 'Come On, Get Happy' plays in the background
Originally posted by IkNOwSTuff
LOL
That was great!!!!
Has anyone really said it was racist?
More likely is VW put that out there to get some free publicity.
Totally harmless and good fun
After the interview, "New York Times" columnist Charles Blow weighs in on the ad, saying he didn't like it and the Jamaican accent was "like blackface with voices."
As Super Bowl ads start to trickle online in anticipation of Super Sunday, one spot is already facing a wave of criticism that could lead to its being pulled off the air during the big game. The ad comes from Volkswagen, a company
that has made waves on Super Sunday for the past two years by way of adorable dogs and small Darth Vaders. This year, the German auto maker's commercial features a man from Minnesota speaking in a Jamaican accent:
The controversy got its start on CNN yesterday when Jamaican-born Christopher John Farley of the Wall Street Journal said: "Although I love you featuring Jimmy Cliff in the ad, a terrific Jamaican performance, the Jamaican accent did sort of strike me as Jar Jar Binks-ish." The New York Times's Charles Blow had a more intense reaction, saying the accent was "like blackface with voices." The commercial was discussed this morning on the Today show and their "ad expert" Barbara Lippert, the editor-at-large of MediaPost.com, said "this is so racist."
VW America Chief Marketing Officer Tim Mahoney has been defending the ad on CNN: "We did our homework to make sure we weren't offensive so we did some research to make sure we didn't go in a direction we didn't want to go." Additionally, Mahoney explained that they VW marketers talked to about 100 Jamaicans in the research phase and had a speech coach on hand. And there isn't unanimous outrage: On CNN, Soledad O'Brien said she liked it, the Today show couch was divided on opinion, and people on Twitter have been standing up for the ad:
After the interview, "New York Times" columnist Charles Blow weighs in on the ad, saying he didn't like it and the Jamaican accent was "like blackface with voices."