Chevrolet Silverado ad: only blacks and whites in “Our Country?”
by guest contributor HighJive, originally posted at MultiCultClassics
Is the new Chevrolet Silverado commercial patriotic — or patronizing and potentially racist? As John Mellencamp belts out his original tune (which he probably spent half an hour to conceive and produce), there are images of Muhammad Ali, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. Oddly enough, few White heroes appear during the anthem, with the exceptions of the obligatory golfing astronaut and Richard Nixon (?!). Chevy even includes references to New Orleans and the World Trade Center.
Yet despite song lyrics proclaiming, “This Is Our Country,” the spot is virtually devoid of Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans or any other minority group. Guess this is not their country.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
dcase wrote:
I personally do not like it and thought it was strange. However, I must defend it from your charge of racism and willful exclusion. If you look closely all of the footage showed represent both important events in recent US history but also –and probably more important — events whose footage would be readily recognizable to the public at large –i.e., civil rights movement, Nixon waving from the helicopter after his resignation, soldiers in Vietnam etc. Hence, if there is a beef here, it should be with the news organizations who choose which stories are important to cover; Chevy admakers were just piggybacking.
What I find interesting is that Chevy would want to associate itself with some of the sorriest episodes in American history. Recalling this stuff does not exactly make me want to spend money on a truck.
Posted 25 Oct 2006 at 7:33 am ¶
HighJive wrote:
Well, I’m not sure I’d proclaim it was willful exclusion. It rarely is. Rather, it’s usually an exclusion based on cluelessness. Racism isn’t always rooted in evil and deliberate scheming. After all, when a big company like Chevy decides to celebrate “our country,” you’d think someone in the corporate suites would consider the diversity of this nation. Makes you wonder about the diversity at Chevy. No need to consider the diversity of its advertising agencies.
Posted 25 Oct 2006 at 2:26 pm ¶
Y. Carrington wrote:
Not “our” country, but “his” country. The same “America” from “Pink Houses” he’s been selling for twenty years.
Posted 25 Oct 2006 at 2:48 pm ¶
Aya wrote:
I saw this ad Sunday while my mother was watching football, and I was thinking: wait a minute aren’t they missing a few people. But then again, Chevrolet is probably run by white men, and while they were discussing this ad they decided to stick Dr. King and Rosa Parks in there to show they’re not racist. We all know what they are trying to say “if you are an American you will but buy our American vehicles” Please, most of the parts they build these “American” vehicles with comes from Mexico and Japan.
Posted 25 Oct 2006 at 5:33 pm ¶
IkoIko wrote:
Um, so, hmm. yeah… Far be it from me ever to admit liking John Mellencamp’s entire body of work, but I don’t despise all of it.
So he can crank out a song with seemingly little effort. Some might think he’s obnoxious and lazy, that he’s uneducated and his opinion means nothin’.
I may not get the whole midwestern boomer ethos, but he’s no worse than Bob Seger (which Chevy Trucks used for what, 13 years?!?)).
Don’t give a damn if I heard “Pink Houses”– anything in place of “Like A Rock”, please!
FWIW: since when was the amount of time invested in work– especially jingles– proportionate to the worthiness of it actually being used in a campaign?
Blame Interpublic or its Warren, MI-based subsidiary Campbell-Ewald– the perpetrators of this offensive spot– and its creative chief? I sincerely doubt Mellencamp handpicked the images and footage that accompanied his song. No old-school agency gives an artist quite that much creative control.
Why not also mention that Campbell-Ewald, is running this under a “Our Country, Our Truck” theme, that ties into a 28-minute infomercial voiced by white-boy Howie Long and a 24-page mini-book polybagged into white-boy gearhead reading material like Motor Trend, Field and Stream and Popular Science (because “people of color” don’t read these publications as well, right)?
Look, I’d find more of red meat that they didn’t find good rural voices from people of color in the heartland and Indian Country to plug all this stuff. I’d also suggest a brand name change for the Silverado might be in order too.
And overall, I’d find more traction that this is a white-male auto-theme campaign for a white-male run company (GM) still recovering from $9b worth of financial doo-doo (i.e. it spent more $$$ last year to operate the auto side than it took in from the trucks it sold while it still tries to cut costs) that it desperately needs its newly redesigned and relaunched model to sell and sell big time. Coupled with not a lot of diversity on the agency side, what else might you expect? I think we’d deserve better, of course…
Also left out: there’s a promo caravan (featuring the Silverado I’m sure) from the Texas State Fair to NJ leg of Farm Aid (the charity Mellencamp founded over 20 years with other rock and country artists).
Mellencamp’s been good to family farms including Black farmers, especially given the long association with the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund– especially in the wake of Katrina. He’s ok in my book…
Posted 25 Oct 2006 at 6:09 pm ¶
tmk wrote:
All I have to say is that this is the most bizarre and dumbest commercial ever. What does a truck have to do with all these events? Plus, by using country music, doesn’t that cater the commercial to a specific demographic?
Margaret Cho once told this episode of her getting angry at a car with a bumper sticker that said something like “this car was made with tools, not chopsticks”–Maybe Chevrolet should adopt this slogan.
Posted 27 Oct 2006 at 4:18 pm ¶
joeblow wrote:
ya, this commercial is insane. ya’ll should open up your comments on this site right here, they seem to have a link up to the commercial.
Posted 09 Nov 2006 at 6:09 pm ¶
Justin wrote:
I was really offended by this commercial; I had to go online to see if others felt the same way.
Can we please start a movement to make advertising illegal? They are deceitful and harm people. This ad appears to be marketed towards white and black blue-collar christian workers, it’s strage how they can just ignore this company’s clear violation of ‘Thou shall not lie’…
This commercial reaks of propaganda.
Are we suppossed to be proud of America? I had nothing to do with the civil rights movement, I didn’t help with the Katrina relief. I don’t understand pride… can someone please explain it for me? I’m suppossed to take credit and support one person over another because of a state? It’s just a glorified gang.
However, it’s difficult to do a historical retrospective themed on “This is our country.” Is it even possible? “Our” and “Country” are exclusive by definition…
Posted 10 Nov 2006 at 8:27 pm ¶
bryan wrote:
most of these chevy commericials depict ONLY white people, only the ones on sunday night football have blacks in it as far as I can tell…seems like some redneck version of America to me all farmers and white people…
Posted 10 Dec 2006 at 9:23 pm ¶
Billy Bob wrote:
Sorry but apparently you are only seeing one version of the commercial.
Latino Version
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061026/AUTO01/610260357/1148
Theres also a texas only version and a california version.
Learn to use Google to accuire adequate information before making you unfounded comments about something most of you obviously haven’t researched.
Posted 24 Dec 2006 at 12:54 pm ¶
Kevin Sr wrote:
I believe that if a stupid commercial bothers you all
that much it’s not the commercial thats the problem.stop watching tv and get out and get a life
Posted 24 Dec 2006 at 1:01 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
Kevin: I respectfully think that you’re taking a very blinded view. Like it or not, commerical media is a slice of the popular culture – things seen in commercials as humorous, entertaining, and interesting are there because the ad-makers are tapping into cultural ideas to sell their product.
In other words, commercials are a 30-second window INTO that wider world. And some of what was acceptable on the airwaves 50 years ago would be absolutely abhorrent today.
Speaking of… anyone noticing the recent “caveman” Geico commercials? Recent ones have continued the saga of the minority cavemen looking for a little respect – including going to a therapist who just doesn’t GET why a caveman would be offended by the Geico slogan. It’s meant to be humorous, but it’s definitely touching the ironic edge of my funny bone…
Posted 24 Dec 2006 at 1:20 pm ¶
Justin wrote:
I think people should have more to do than anaylize freaking commercial searching for some subliminal message or some other hidden agenda… like say… brainwashing America to think only black and white people should live here.
Lets forget about the freaking Indians who were here before any other color.,… I mean… who cares about them, right?
Freaking commercials…
they are selling something…
and obviously they are selling fuel for people to put on a fire.
Hoping racism dies out is like beating a dead horse with a stick.
Posted 26 Dec 2006 at 2:28 pm ¶
George wrote:
I guess the makers of every commercial must take an inventory of the ethnicity of the entire cast to make sure everyone is represented or risk being labeled racists. The “logic” in this is what is wrong with “our ‘pc’ country.”
Posted 31 Dec 2006 at 6:51 pm ¶
nutty wrote:
that’s an awful lot of cheese to pack into 30 seconds…
pass the vomit bag.
Posted 07 Jan 2007 at 5:13 am ¶
patheticgm wrote:
A little late, i know, but i just came upon this site. It’s clear that the message they want to send is that you want to buy “American,” rather than “Japanese/Asian.” So they purposely kept anyone of Asian descent out of this. “This is our country. Not there’s.” Accordingly, I will never buy a GM product. And I will make sure that anyone I know never buys a GM product. Hey, GM, you’re a-holes.
Posted 27 Oct 2007 at 11:37 pm ¶
whitelily wrote:
I think we should make all advertising illegal. It would parallel the Do Not Call List. Start with the delivery of handbills. Then billboards, keep it up until the only advertising allowed is on the net and is restricted to a description of the product (like Amazon). Absolutely nothing would be lost but we would take control of our culture. Our feelings and thoughts are being manipulated and truth is absent. ((You’d think there would already be a law against some of the insinuations made!) If you love the Do Not Call legislation, start writing your congresspersons with the call to make commercial handbills and billboards illegal. Just for a start. Do it!
Posted 12 Jun 2008 at 7:49 pm ¶