Froot Loops "Witch Doctor" commercial

Another article about Kellogg protesting the Maya Archaeology toucan notes the nonprofit's counter-attack:

Mayan group's logo too much like Toucan Sam, Kellogg's squawks

By Tiffany HsuThe San Ramon-based Maya Archaeology Initiative said its toucan looks nothing like Kellogg’s cartoon and that the two birds aren’t in competition.

The group added its own accusation: Kellogg’s Froot Loops advertising strategy sends racist messages to its young target audience with the presence of a dark-skinned villain named the Greedy Witch Doctor who steals from children, it said.Comment:  Racist messages? Yes, indeed!

Kellogg quickly removed the video after people noted it was blatantly racist. But every good blogger knows to save screen images of controversial items. So let's see how many problems this commercial has:

The time-frame is presumably the present...or is it? The Maya pyramids look old and abandoned, but the "witch doctor" acts as if it's his era. If the commercial is set in the past, where are all the Maya inhabitants of this city-state?

What's going on here is obvious. The commercial is treating Indians as primitive people of the past. There's no hint whatsoever that millions of Maya Indians still live in Central America.



"There are no Maya Indians or government officials around. Let's climb these irreplaceable ruins without permission."

The toucans see the Froot Loops and move to take them. But the witch doctor clearly says they're his. The toucans don't acknowledge this or care about it. What they see, they want, and what they want, they take.

We've seen this attitude in everything from the Indiana Jones movies to Avatar. It's a classic example of Western (white) privilege in action. Historically, Euro-Americans haven't cared if someone owned something they wanted. They simply assumed their divine right to possess everything and took it.



"Treasure! I see, I want, I take! Because I'm an American toucan!"

Note the unintentional irony when they call the witch doctor "greedy." They think he's greedy because he objects to their taking his possessions without permission. Another word for the toucans' actions is thievery.

In reality, the toucans are the greedy ones. They want something they haven't earned. They exemplify this infamous John Wayne quote:I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.As I wrote on my John Wayne page: "Those darn Indians. They selfishly tried to keep themselves alive while the US selflessly tried to exterminate them. The nerve of some people!"



"No, you can't have my Froot Loops. I'm greedily keeping them to myself rather than giving them to you for no reason."

Indian looks evil

So-called witch doctors come from Africa, of course. They have nothing to do with Mesoamerican Indians. But they represent everything Westerners don't understand about indigenous religions.

The witch doctor has beady eyes, a huge hooked nose reminiscent of Jewish caricatures), and thick lips reminiscent of black caricatures. His skin is mostly shadowed, making him a dusky brown. Indeed, he has an aura that makes him darker than his surroundings. In short, Indians are dark and demonic.

"Look closely at my beady little eyes and big hooked nose. And the weird lighting that keeps most of my body in shadow even though you toucans are well-lit. Clearly I'm not just evil, I'm evil incarnate. I'm as evil as the Jews who were also caricatured like this."

He wears a toucan headdress with fiery red eyes. This suggests he's the evil counterpart of the "good" toucans. In reality, the Maya didn't wear toucan headdresses. I don't think toucans played any part in their religion.

The point again is obvious. According to this commercial, Native religion is primitive, superstitious nature worship. It's a Halloween mask, chant, and dance. And Kellogg can fabricate Maya beliefs because (it thinks) no one is left to care.

The witch doctor tries to ward off the toucans by throwing "magic sprinkles" at them. These form scary mask shapes in the air. So the primitive religion involves Harry Potter-style tricks. It's a form of black magic.

"All us superstitious savages practice primitive rites that involve black magic. Here's an example."

Catholic Witch Doctor?

Imagine the toucans entered a cathedral and said they wanted the gold altarpieces. A Catholic priest in a toucan outfit tried to stop them. He used magic dust to scare them off with images of Christian saints. Like Kellogg's Indian, he's identified as "Greedy Witch Doctor."

This scenario is identical to the one in the commercial, but it's inconceivable that it would appear in America's mainstream media. People would immediately condemn it as false and prejudiced. Kellogg would apologize profusely, chastise the executives who approved it, terminate the ad agency, etc.

But, some may object, the scenarios are not identical. Catholic priests don't wear toucan outfits and aren't witch doctors. That's the point: The same is true of Maya priests.

In fact, central Africa is much closer to the Vatican than it is to Mesoamerica. Some Africans are now Catholic bishops and priests. And Catholic ceremonies supposedly heal or prevent Satanic influences, same as witch-doctoring. So a Catholic priest has more in common with a witch doctor than a Maya priest does.

No blacks, just Indians

It goes without saying that Kellogg would never show an actual witch doctor. You know, an African in a grass skirt with a bone through his nose. Like the one below.

But the company thought nothing of showing an evil Indian in the same position. Once again, Indians win the "Oppression Olympics." Sometimes America's racism is simply incredible.

For more on the subject, see Stereotypes in Tarzan of the Apes, Tribalism in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, and Indian Religion Isn't Shamanism.