Carol - I could not agree with you more! The commercial is in pretty poor
taste and smacks of colonialism.
Jay Singh, PhD, MBA
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----- Original Message -----
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 12:32 PM
Subject: Land-Rover commercial...
> I am wondering whether any list-members have also viewed and reacted to a
> TV commercial for Land Rover that has recently begun to air in the US on
> several cable stations: CNN, Home and Garden TV, the Travel Channel,
> maybe a few more. It shows a crowded "festival" street setting in some
> vaguely southeast Asian looking area, replete with exotically dressed
> people, and a procession in progress with an elephant bearing a litter
> with some concealed dignitary inside. All action stops when a Land
> Rover, shiny and magnificent with darkly tinted window obscuring the
> occupants, wends its way through the choked street - the exotic
> "orientals" fall aside in awe. There is a brief shot from the inside of
> the vehicle of the staring faces of the locals only inches from the
> tinted glass, but brightly visible to the Land Rover occupants who are
> not pictured. Then the view switches to the curtained litter atop the
> elephant, from which a brown-skinned be-ringed hand suddenly extends to
> signal right-of-way to the Land Rover. The caption is a single word,
> "Respect".
> Yes, we know to expect vulgarity from advertising, but I was
> nevertheless a bit stunned by this commercial. With all the subtlety of
> a sledgehammer, it reduces "orientalism" to just about as succinct a
> 30-second spot as one could imagine. Has anyone else seen this and had
> similiar reactions to it?
> Just curious...
>
> Carol Medlicott, UCLA Geography
>
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