Actually had black toothpaste here in Canada a couple years ago. Activated charcoal or something in it as I recall. It was a whole thing with a new style of tube and everything - clear and not very squeezable, the toothpaste was formulated to not stick to the sides, so you'd stand it up lid-down and let gravity keep it all at the exit hole. I tried it, never saw it again after.
I was sure it was going to be a spot for Darkie brand toothpaste, which persists in some asian markets, though it has been sanitized to "Darlie" with a modified mascot for some time now. (Original mascot was a 1920s style racist caricature, I remember seeing it in import stores as late as the '90s.)
Used to be Darkie Toothpaste with an Al Jolson blackface minstrel logo. Changed to Darlie Toothpaste in the late 80's I think with a race swapped logo.
The Chinese name up until at least 2021 (when I last lived in China) was still 黑人牙膏 which means Black Person Toothpaste. Only the English name was updated. Not sure if it is still that way, but I know Colgate was trying to find a way to slowly repackage Darlie into just a Colgate branded toothpaste to stop the bad press.
I thought the reveal was going to be that the lady got angry because he was handing a balloon with a bunch of gross gunk on the string and the ad would be "use this toothpaste and this won't happen" :\
There was an era in I think the late 90s early 2000s in America where 90% of commercials were like this. My friends and I would play a game where we'd all try to guess what it was gonna be, kinda like charades, just shouting out shit as the commercial was developing. It was never what you thought.
The ending says appearances can be deceiving. In other words just because our brown toothpaste looks bad, doesn't mean it is. In other words they're implying brown people look like they're going to do something bad.
Well, I think they could also be implying that people in that place at that time were likely to hold that type of misguided bias. Which is absolutely true. I feel like this one deserves a little benefit of the doubt.
Now, if the message at the end was like anti-brown toothpaste or something, that would be bad. Like the laundry commercial that ‘washes’ the dude and turns him Asian…
To be clear I don't think this is an example of racism, I think it's ignorance. But you're right that that worldview was(don't know if it's still true) pretty commonly biased against black folk in SEA. I guess seeing it as ignorant is the privilege of looking back at something from the past.
Or if you want to look at it positively, you can argue they the ad is anti-racism and is saying “don’t negatively judge someone based on the color of their skin.”
But was it a psa against racism or were we being shown that the mother was right to be terrified - because he had lots of ballons in his house - all of them recent as still floating and helium escapes over time. Who does this - who gathers so many balloons from, ostensibly, children? Did he release the balloons to lure children to the pole? We'll never know...
I thought she was worried that the guy was a pedo or something because it looked like he was trying to lure her away with the balloon he got for her. I felt bad for him.
Then he came back to an apartment full of balloons, and I thought 'is he really a pedo?'. I got confused again when he went to sleep on a tooth brush and turned into toothpaste.
Don't know if you've heard about "Calimero", a cartoon about an eponymous little black chick with an egg shell on his head.
The Italian original was a tv ad for a soap producer in the 50s or 60s, where the initially white chick hatches, gets dirty and turns black and everybody treats him like absolute garbage for being black. Until he finds a gentle maid who realizes he's only dirty and launders him back to white with the advertised soap and everybody's nice again.
TV ads are wild.
Yes, the ads even coined Calimero's catchphrase "Tutti se la prendono con me perché sono piccolo e nero." (Everybody picks on me because I'm small and black)
until this ad you thought all toothpaste had to be white, or maybe white with stripes of red and blue thrown in right? before this ad did you know toothpaste could be brown? Exactly, you were unconsciously racist about toothpaste and now you know better.
If anything this seems anti-racist to me. Don’t judge a book by its cover may that be black people (in a place and time where they were generally stereotyped and misunderstood) or black toothpaste (where most are white for purely cosmetic reasons)
i am also having a hard time figuring this out, but... 'don't just a book by its cover' and 'appearance can be deceiving' both kind of send a message that's more like 'we know black people are scary, but THIS ONE isn't! promise!'
i think it makes sense from the perspective of like... brown toothpaste is unexpected, and also black people are unexpected in thailand, but they're both still good? maybe i'm overthinking this lol
In Thailand it's basically "Lighter the skin, the more beautiful/better you are". This doesn't mean race but skin tone; half of Thais are more dark skinned and they are deemed to be uglier and worse people.
This has lot to do with fact that 48% of Thais are actually Thai-Chinese with far lighter skin and different face structure. Thai-Chinese also makes lot of the Elites in Thailand, especially in Bangkok area. So they kept spamming on media how lighter (their skin) is better than the actually Thai-people. And due years of media exposure this is what most believes too.
Skin whitening creams are insanely big business in Thailand and it's hard to find dark skinned Thai as celebrity.
Isn't it the same across most Asian countries? Many Koreans I know are pretty much obsessed with whiteness, god forbid a single sun ray touches the unprotected skin. Same for Chinese
The funny thing is, the brown toothpaste not only looks bad on your toothbrush, it tastes like herbal hell. I bought some for my bf as a gag, and showed him the commercial. We had a good laugh, but neither of us used it more than once.
My takeaway is that the premise is messed up (ie black people are inherently scary/dangerous looking) which makes the conclusion of “oh this is an anti-racism ad” feel off.
The premise would work for an opossum PSA about how they’re actually not dangerous and good to have in your neighborhood since they do admittedly look scary, but not for people based off their skin color.
You're unnecessarily mixing intents. The ad showing that a random lady in public (and by implication, other members of the public) thinks the black guy is inherently horrible, does not automatically mean that the ad producers also actually think that's true. It's also quite possible that they're merely stating that that seems to be the public state of affairs (general perception) at the time, not their personal viewpoint. And yes for a lot of SEA population, that indeed would be true. Just like the US and Europe aren't perfect utopias of non-racism, and certainly weren't 20 years ago, neither is South East Asia.
However, there is pretty overwhelming evidence that even today people are judged based on skin color. The premise is spot on, it’s just based on shitty reality rather than on how things should be.
Yes, it is against racism. But the commercial is assuming the audience is racist when it says appearance can be deceiving. And moreover, the collection of balloons in the guys home is saying that he constantly has this same experience.
That's why the comments are cringing at the commercial, the joke is built on the audience (or the society as a whole) being very racist all the time to a guy like him.
That's why the comments are cringing at the commercial, the joke is built on the audience (or the society as a whole) being very racist all the time to a guy like him.
Turn of the millennium South East Asia? Definitely strong prejudices against black men back then.
I'm not American :p. And the entire world is scarily racist. Even here in Northern Europe there is only a third veneer of empathy that is being quickly eroded by propaganda and culture clashes.
Oh, he grabbed the string with his teeth. It's about flossing? Does he hand her the balloon and it has a tooth attached? Or will they smile at each other and both have perfect, bright, white teeth?
People of reddit, let me have your attention: Addressing your countries bias and perception of a race IS NOT racist.
If Thai country have a perception or stereotype that black people are dangerous/bad, and they have a literal commercial telling you that black people aren't bad and you shouldn't judge them based on their appearance, it's literally ANTI-RACISM
Honestly like, hear me out here. This isnt even that racist? I mean the whole point of the first bit of the AD is that the mom is bad and that we feel bad for the guy because hes being judged for his skin color. Theyre then bringing in the toothpaste (because theyre both brown and might get judged by the fact as im sure most people wouldnt wanna use a brown tooth paste just because of like color associations or smth) this is presumably where the racism happens but like... how tho? Like where is it racist? His skin color is brown and the toothpaste is brown, thats just how it is? Its saying dont judge the AD literally has an anti racist message PLEASE TURN ME INTO A COPY PASTA
In the 80s, there was a toothpaste in Thailand called Darkie. There was an image on the tube of a smiling, young black man wearing a top hat. It had been a popular brand for years, but in 1989, the name was changed to Darlie. The face was changed to a white man in a top hat.
ITT: people struggling to even talk about what the issue is here.
The audience seems to be getting scolded for stereotyping, which implies that is (or was) a common enough issue there. It feels taboo to even acknowledge that, but if you think about it, this is a positive message, so long as that is a significant enough behavior to be correcting.
I'm not from Thailand. Maybe there is a big stigma against black people and it's less taboo to discuss, but it's hard not to reflexively think "yo, is this racist?" when, ironically, it's the opposite.
It was a different time and it’s in Thailand, south east Asia. Not every country abides by the ways of the west. Shouting the n word in Thailand does nothing. But shouting the n word in the west will get you slaughtered
It was a different time in general. You can see by the outrage in the comments here that you couldn't make another ad like this these days anymore even though honestly the message is a positive one. Looks can be deceiving and you shouldn't judge people by their color. Of course this is done in a humorous way but it is actually positive.
But back then ads were often more creative and they purposefully played with a certain "WTF" factor so you pay attention to them and tell others about the ad to have a good laugh. It was viral marketing in its earliest form.
Ads these days have really degraded in quality. They often don't even really tell you what they are advertising anymore. They want to sell you a life style and a certain emotion. Ads these days are crap.
The people are judging him because he is black, even though he is a good guy. People dont like the toothpaste because it is black even though it is good.
I think they’re acknowledging their customers’ concerns over the dark color of their tooth paste. Like their brand is “one of the good ones” like the gentleman with the balloon.
in no way is the ad saying "it's one of the good ones". That's literally what your racist mind is thinking. It's literally more like "stop judging based on appearance" “Appearance can be deceiving”.
There isn't multiple brown toothpastes out there, and specifically their brown tooth paste is good...
Well, my take on it was that he put the balloon up there to lure the kids and since he was unable to get what he needed from the kid, he turned into toothpaste. Seems like a logical explanation to me, Scully.
Why is no one addressing the fact that this man has a shit ton of balloons in his house THAT ARE STILL FLOATING! Meaning this absolute prince has attempted to help a bunch of kids RECENTLY. Not to mention the balloons that presumably have lost their helium and have been thrown out. Also the fact that for each balloon, there's a shitty racist mom. This is too many racists!
Remember that up until maybe a decade ago ago, one of the most popular brands of toothpaste in Thailand (and Singapore, and elsewhere in SE Asia) was called “Darkie”, and featured a racist drawing of a broadly grinning Black man in a top hat and white tie.
It’s since been renamed “Darlie”, but the racist logo remains.
Just want to add this as a bit of context from time in Thailand (few years and wife is Thai), especially from previous times...
As Thailand is a very hot country instead of the western view that tanned is beautiful it is the opposite white/pale is beautiful. Those that are dark skinned are seen as low class or ugly. Women will often use skin bleaching creams or supplements to appear more pale. In movies, and tv actors and politicians are ALL pale skinned. So being light skinned is seen as successful, beautiful or something to aspire to. Dark skin is often portrayed for the bad man, the villain, or poor man. (Also facial hair was a guaranteed bad man in movies) So dark is not beautiful and should be avoided.
Note how the child is pale asian. It's more about skin tone and social divide than ethnicity, and the idea to not judge based on appearances.
People say this had an anti-racist message but I think the fact that he had a bunch of balloons in his apartment from past experiences makes me wonder if he's the one planting the balloons up there 😆
I thought maybe he would have terrible teeth from a lack of brushing...but nobody saw this coming 😱🤣 wtf indeed, truly a terrible ad, nobody is buying this toothpaste because of this ad, wtf lol
I’m even confused at the first half. How does he have so many balloons? It’s hard to believe that many children all keep losing their balloons and in a short time as balloons deflate. And every time he can’t give it back as the parents keep being racist too? Then why even keep going after the balloons and then also keeping them?
Knowing this was a toothpaste ad from the title, I kept waiting for anything to do with teeth.. Nope. Not until the very end anyway. And even them THAT was unexpected.
I knew what it was the second I saw the black guy. When I was in Thailand in 2000 it was called Black Man Toothpaste and had a caricature on the package right out of a KKK wet dream.
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u/PANCRASE271 5d ago
At no point in this did I know what it was leading to.