Normally, I dismiss most of the hyped stories-of-the-day I read on the internet as silliness attributed to the way of the world. There's always somebody upset with somebody else, some protest going on, or some group who is radically offended with the actions or words of some other group. Again, I will just attribute this to the fact that with billions of people connected across the world and exposed to each others' ways and practices, conflicts will arise.
Today, however, I came across something that just made my mind hurt. Every 'net news outlet carried the story about the Mexican Absolut ad. For those who haven't refreshed their browser recently, the ad wizards at Absolut decided to try to market their product with another clever 'absolut' related image, but this time went with something a bit more controversial than a bottle shaped pool. This time, they chose to show an image of North America, but instead of our understood layout of countries, they showed Mexico still with the land that they had sold to America after the Mexican-American War. This includes California, Texas, Arizona, Colorado,
Utah and the rest of the desert/mountainous lands of the west. You can see in the image that "In an Absolut World" is taglined across this faux map. Obviously, this image is geared to Mexicans who have national pride and maybe even those that still hold a grudge against the U.S. for acquiring that land from the Mexican empire. However, what resulted from this image being printed was an outraged cry from American "nationalists" saying it was a blatant anti-American ad and it sympathized with illegal immigrants and their cause. Whaaaa?
I can see how this image may seem like an attack on America. I mean, they colored an area of the U.S. the same as part of Mexico! How dare they even connote any type of connection between the great nation of America and the pitiful shamble that is it's southern neighbor!
What gets me is that people really thought that absolut is anti-american. I'm pretty sure that Absolut does a shit ton more business in the U.S., and they were just looking for a new angle to attract a Mexican demographic. In no way would they want to ruin any previous relationships, that's just bad business. This was just a way to appeal to the Mexican people. Absolut could easily run another ad 'strictly for the U.S.', that would show a map of the world with the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Iraq, Kuwait, Vietnam, (and plenty others) all colored the same and use the exact same tagline. The ad is simply appealing to the nationalism of the Mexican people, and could be done the same way with other countries.
Instead, what has resulted from this ad is yet another scapegoat of a much larger issue. Those people who live in 'shaded green area' of the US on that map who have ill feelings about the current immigration situation see this ad as an opportunity to address the issue. Unfortunately, this ties Absolut into a mess they have nothing to do with. People see Absolut as 'sympathetic' to a cause they don't agree with and Point A goes to Point C without considering Point B, and you get the outcry as a result. Granted, immigration is a hot topic in the southwest, but there should be an ability to sort out relevance and involvement among the media.
On a similar note, there was another outcry amongst homosexuals against Jay Leno. On a recent show, he was discussing roles with his guest, Ryan Phillipe, and asked for his best "gay face". Immediately, this was seen as a slant against gays and a whole web site was born of people showing their best 'gay face'. (It's not what you expect) Again, I can see where people are coming from when they say they are 'offended' by his comments, being that it is very easy to attack someone who mentions a tender subject, but in this case, the audience knew exactly where Leno was trying to go with the joke, and be it funny or not funny, there was no bad intentions. But issues in the public realm quickly get shifted to its ideological extreme and then get blasted by those on the sides of those extremes, leading to media coverage and exploitation without giving context or real consideration.
It's unfortunate that this is how our media works. It takes a level head to see through the fog of the issues' presentation and think about the real intention of these actions. What we get in the meantime is a system of scapegoats that goad around the real issues that really have a reason for people to be upset about them. The best example: violence and video games. But that will be another post.
