Thursday, November 25, 2010

Is it Racist?

Discover Card Commercial

On the surface, those Discover Cashback Reward commercials are not racist with the guy name 'Peggy' answering the phone. After all, the person being mocked is a guy of Nordic/Slavic descent. But on a deeper level, the commercial does have some racist overtones.

In my experiences, if the customer service representative is a foreigner, he/she is most likely from India. Imagine the public outcry if the commercial mocked an Indian. The PC police would be screeching like howler monkeys. And for good reason. But having the person on the commercial be a burly, bearded Nordic/Slavic man in a flannel shirt, the racist element was removed from the equation

So, hats off to the admen for skirting the racial issue the way they did.

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