Yeah, people love it, or hate it. Currently, people seem to be hatin' more than lovin'...
Dear Mr. Morten Rowley and Mr. Johnathan and Josh Baker
You seem like a very talented group of artists. I have looked at both of your websites and you all definitely have a strong visual style.
That fact makes it all the more disheartening considering the reason I am writing you and the reason I went to look at your work in the first place. An issue was brought to my attention with a recent ad campaign you worked on for Wrigley's Extra Gum. It saddened me to see that you would resort to making a very base and offensive design for "Mr Sushi" in this campaign. The power of media is stronger than you think. When you create what may seem like a harmless caricature with slanty eyes and buck teeth, it is a subversively insipid attack on all Asians. There was no reason to design the character in that way except to appeal to the lowest common denominator in imagery; as artists shouldn't you be trying to challenge such ideas? It may have seemed cute and harmless to you, but to someone who has had to spend my whole life combating this kind of image from Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's to William Hung on American Idol in both my professional and personal life, it was extremely unsettling. You most likely do not consider yourselves racists, but by creating this character, you have inadvertently perpetuated an awful stereotype.
I don't know how you are going to respond to this email, but I thought it was important to let you know how strongly I feel about this issue. I thought I should also let you know that I am not alone in this. I hope that you are open to hearing it and take this opportunity to be more careful in the future. I am giving you the benefit of the doubt in thinking this was not something you meant to do with any malicious intent. I hope that you think twice in the future about what kind of effect your art can have on people. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Michael Kang
- kangisman@gmail.com
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And this:
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Very funny cracker boys. Nice touch on the stereotypical slanted eyes and buck tooth. What would have been funnier is replacing that character with a fat, balding Cracker with a shade of red-neck and chewing straw. The slogan then can be, "Girls, please use Wrigley's Extra to fight ugly fat advancing YT".
That's not as bad as the hatemail I got! It simply said "F**k you, you racist c**t". Plain, simple and to the point. I like it. Ha.
James - 11:49am, 10th of October
it seems that you have to hand out cotton wool eye gloves to everyone these day. as chopper say's "harden the fuck up". or as i like to say "get over it and get on with it".
