See all of 'Parks and Recreation's' fake 'Johnny Karate' commercials
By Casey Rackham
Throughout Tuesday's (Feb. 17) episode, which follows Andy and Co. during his last ever "Johnny Karate" show before he moves to Washington, D.C., a handful of commercials that might possibly be considered the most awkward ads ever aired.
There's one for Ron Swanson's building company that has approximately 20 seconds of silence, one for Paunch Burger that features a Dinner for Breakfast Burger Combo, one for Wamapoke Casino with Chief Ken Hotate using wolf folklore to get people to visit and one for a really scary-sounding company called Verizon Chipotle Exxon. It's pretty much all of the Pawnee-themed commercials fans could ever hope for.
Comment: This commercial straddles the line between good and bad. Obviously, it uses the wolf stereotype only to subvert it with a casino pitch. But the Indian who uses a casino to take back the white man's money is also a stereotype.
You could say the joke is on the white casino customers who fall for this hucksterism and lose their money. Or you could say the joke is on the Indian who acts like a crass commercial money-grubber--i.e., a huckster.
Some Indian casino ads do have this rah-rah tone, but they're usually more sophisticated. Indian casinos are generally big businesses, akin to classy hotels or resorts. You don't see classy hotels or resorts advertising themselves like used-car lots, so why should a tribe take this approach. It implies Indians are less sophisticated--like amateurs or rubes--than they really are.
If it isn't a race-based claim--Indians are primitive and savage--it's a class-based claim. The implication is that Indians act low-class because they're one step up from poverty. Which is only slightly better than implying they don't understand the white man's ways.
In reality, you wouldn't even an Indian shilling for his own casino. Today's tribal executives have MBAs and run multimillion-dollar operations. They'd hire a management team that would hire an ad agency that would hire professional actors to do a commercial. Casino customers want fun and excitement, not Native culture, so that's what the pros give them.
As a white person who is not educated on the topic of race, I can't comment on how the fake ad relates to real life issues. I will give my opinion as a fan of the show, and of Ken Hotate (I really think he's a great character). Based on what we see of Ken on the show, I think that any stereotypes depicted in the ad are being parodied by Ken, and that the joke is on the white people watching the ad. In the ad, Ken putting on the persona of a huckster as joke. Ken is highly intelligent and based on his manipulations of the white characters on the show; he clearly does “understand the white man's ways”. I think there would be MBAs managing the company, which likely would be a multimillion-dollar operation. As a parody of stereotypes being depicted, I’m guessing the ad would be very effective, I think an ad like that could go viral in real life. I don’t think Ken would need anyone to make ads for his Casino, and from his perspective that would mean missing out on the fun of creating the ads.
ReplyDelete