Update: SIX Flagging
Dan Snyder’s infirm theme park chain, Six Flags, announced not long ago it was cutting back on its advertising outsourcing as part of a budget slash.
Every penny helps, since Six Flags is over $2 billion-with-a-b in debt.
But perhaps the company coulda used those extra eyeballs looking at the ads produced for this year’s high season before letting ‘em hit tv sets. Because the spots they ended up with — as part of a campaign featuring an Asian guy with some sort of accent screaming “More Flags! More Fun!” — are being called things way worse than dumb on blogs and message boards.
Like: “Racist.”
Among those tagging the Six Flags ad campaign with the R word are bloggers Angry Chinese Guy and Angry Asian Man.
Here’s part of Angry (and, judging solely by his sporadic blogging, Kinda Lazy) Chinese Guy’s takedown of the Six Flags spots:
The Asian guy, of course, has an accent and does not properly pronounce the words correctly. He doesn’t even speak in complete sentences! He just barks out short phrases. I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty damn racist…We want more Asian representation in the media, but damn if this is all we’re going to get, then forget it. The saying goes something like “Bad publicity is still publicity”…fuck that. This only furthers the stereotypes of Asian people and we really don’t need this. This damn commercial puts us back a few years. It tries to play off of the Japanese commercials where the guy pops up (just as this guy does) and sells a product. How often have we seen this type of satire? LOTS. Now Six Flags is taking this ignorance nationwide, helping to deliver this stereotypical portrayal of Asians into households everywhere!
The “More Flags!” screamer is the first pitchman Six Flags has had since Mr. Six, who was deep sixed by Snyder shortly after he took the chain’s reins in 2005.
Nobody ever called Mr. Six racist. “Pedophile” was thrown his way a lot, however.
Keep the dial right here for all the breaking news in Snyder’s Six Flags soap opera.
16 Responses to “Update: SIX Flagging”
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June 16th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
The Asian guy, of course, has an accent and does not properly pronounce the words correctly. He doesn’t even speak in complete sentences! He just barks out short phrases. I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty damn racist…We want more Asian representation in the media, but damn if this is all we’re going to get, then forget it.
June 16th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
The Danny is an equal opportunity offender of all things: people, trees, fans…oh my
I mean, wouldn’t you expect MORE from a guy that made a portion of his early money in mass marketing. Being wealthy definitely doesn’t preclude one from being stupid.
June 17th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Wow! get a life, its a commercial! If you were really looking for something offensive, they could have made the commerical “Asia people so dumb”
June 17th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Me rike dis commersal. I no finds it racist. Go back to asia, you stupid asia people. You people so stupid.
June 17th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Are you serious??? Taken you back a few years? That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard in my life….If you feel that has taken you back a few years…then you have never seen discrimination in your life. Grow UP!!
June 17th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
I really don’t see anything wrong with this commercial. I don’t know if anyone has listened to the people who actually work at the parks. I for one know that at my home park, a good majority of the employees have English as a second language. What’s more is that they have these people working attractions where oral communications is required, such as the guide on the train. Riders can’t understand a thing that is spoken. So again, I see nothing wrong with this ad. I think it is funny.
June 18th, 2008 at 12:55 am
Get a life….
Just because a commercial is stupid does not mean that the people (or whole race of people) acting in the commercial are stupid. How many people are blogging that the Sonic Drive-In commercial are racist against White people???? There just stupid ads trying to get you to remember them…I think they succeeded….
June 18th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
I rike the ads. If I no want to see the ads I crose my armond shape eye. (giggle while covering mouth)
June 18th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
I’m Asian, and I didn’t find it racist. Whoever is thinking that it’s racist obviously feels insecure about their image. Simply by calling something racist, it becomes taboo. How about taking it as a joke and realizing that Six Flags weren’t purposely tryiing to insult the Asian community. It’s like the “SEGA!” thing during those commercials back in the day. It’s supposed to be punchy and random, thus creating silliness.
And most people are mature enough to realize this… well except for these misguided people.
Asian people and other foreign people have funny accents. When it is joked with, it should be light hearted and this commercial does that…. now what would deem this commercial racist is if the Asian guy said, “MORE FUN FOR ONLY STUPID ASIANS!” That’s more deliberate… I don’t know what’s more stupid and retarded. The commercial or the response from these douche bags?
June 18th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
I’m 100% Asian and I agree with Elias. My main issue with the “racist response” is that there are probably more important things to be spending time on. In fact, I’m probably being a hypocrite by even pointing this out. I’m no Uncle Tom, but you have to be practical about these things.
June 18th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
What’s that rule where one can’t, buy definition, be racist against their own race, epitomized by the usage of the ‘n-word’ by black people referring to each other? So how can Six Flags having an Asian guy speaking in a stereotypically Asian accent be racist? What if the guy actually speaks like that?
June 18th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Are there more racist things out there? Yes, but protecting the integrity of media representation of any ethnic group is really important.
There are lots of impressionable young kids and ignorant adults picking up racial cues from these sorts of commercials- much more so than from a more racist article written in a magazine.
Why did they choose an Asian guy to bark out those lines? If this commercial had an African-American guy saying something similarly “black”- people would be up in arms.
Elias- Just because you’re Asian and you’re not offended doesn’t mean anything. This is not a majority poll. Sorry. Everyone has different levels of education and sensitization to the issue of the effect of media representation on the perception of an ethnic group.
Nandita
June 26th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
I wasn’t sure it was racist until Nandita mentioned the African-American angle. There is no question it was racist if it was an African-American screaming “Mo Fun”.
June 27th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Messa think yousa bomb bad!
July 4th, 2008 at 3:13 am
Take out the “L” sweetie, and you get a different slant on things.
SIX FAGS! MORE FAGS! MORE FUN!
Oogah!
July 6th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Taking offense to that is stupid.
Yeah, so he has an accent… So what?
And why is “More flags, more fun” incorrect?
It’s to the point. It’s not incorrect.
It’s supposed to be silly and effective.
It does the job, there’s nothing offensive about it.
Anyone who complains is giving Six Flags free publicity.
Thus making you even dumber than you sound.