RACIST OR ADORABLE?: Hip Hop Black Face Cupcakes

[cooconuts]

Food blog Eater brings us the latest in a slew of racist baked good controversies.
Purveyor of delicious foods to eat while lonely Duncan Hines made a minute and a half long ad featuring 7 newly chocolate glazed cupcakes beatboxing and autotuning themselves with tiny little eyes and cute little mouths.

And because these cupcakes share the most

Comments

[theartistprince]

omg icing in a squeeze bottle? This is where we've come?

[holdyourdevil]

MTE

[iluvhistory]

There are really awesome icing guns as well.

[thepikey]

[X]Racist
[ ]Delicious
[ ]Delicously Racist

That bit at the end with the last cupcake... No.

[thedorkygirl]

hahah that's where I went from "accidentally racist" to "totally racist by accident cos they thought it would be funny."

[iluvhistory]

I thought it was meant to imply that cupcakes suck without their icing, not anything about the color of the cupcake, but that's just what I took from it.

[hotcoffeems]

It disturbs me that if they didn't make the little faces look EXACTLY LIKE THE OLD GOLLIWOG STEREOTYPE it would actually be a rather cute ad. And yet, they DO look just like that.

How in the Sam Hill did this get past *anyone* in the company?

[leelakin]

I know right?? D8 I really don't think they did it on purpose. But damn.

[hotcoffeems]

Yep, I don't think it was intentional, either. But oh my lord, we really aren't *nearly* to any point where that combination of features isn't freighted with meaning.

And if it weren't a bunch of Golliwog Cupcakes, the ad would be genuinely rather charming, IMO.

[ttentten]

i think it's really sad that no one there has any knowledge of history, apparently. and ESPECIALLY since this ad had to go through a legal department. wtf?

[leelakin]

Huh. They sound neither like Daft Punk, NOR like they're rapping. This is just... weird and confusing. From the previous headlines it sounded like they were really rapping or something, but now I can't really see the big deal. The colour combination of lips/syrup might be a unfortunate though, since it looks a bit blackface-y, but idk. D8

[thefathomist]

It's there if you go looking for it, but you have to place that lens over it.