Beijing Olympics: The Commercials |History: The Roadmap to the Future--Asia

About the American commercials for the 2008 Beijing Olympics:

The Good

The Coca-Cola commercial with the cartoon birds stealing drinking straws to make a similitude of the Chinese Bird's Nest stadium. The birds are cute, and the message is not all that bad, either.

The Bad

Oreo's train commercial with two children who mimic each other, with the message being the commonality of Mankind. The audience is supposed to automatically conclude that the 'white' child is an American (Oreo is supposed to be 'America's favorite cookie,' after all) while the 'yellow' child is Chinese. The 'white' child could easily be Irish, Canadian, or some other nationality while the 'yellow' child could easily be the American. Neither child (nor parent) speaks in the commercial, so nationality cannot be determined by accent or language. Solely 'race' is used to assign nationality: Americans are 'white;' and the foreigner is the 'yellow' child. The makers of 'America's favorite' cookie ought to find out that America is not all 'white.'

The Ugly

Basically any of the United Airlines commercials, especially the marine orchestra and black and white to color ones. Hideous. Too much frilly-ness and weirdness.

Other Mentionables

General Electric's crane takeoff and rural China commercials. The baby turtles were cute, and the two 'Chinese' protagonists weren't stereotyped and were attractive (the guy was so not Han Chinese, and obviously ethnically Korean). Doesn't do justice to the India version, where they just get a dorky magical doctor. The McDonald's loser soccer team commercial was decent. Then there was Budweiser's identity crisis. 'The great American lager.' Budweiser's 'American Ale.' Is Budweiser wondering whether 'hardworking Americans' will abandon their company after the takeover? Budweiser, the great American lager? Are you referring to Budweiser, the mediocre Belgian beer? The Ellis Island conservation commercial was lame: who actually believes that the greatest thing for Phelp's is to be an American? Phelps won eight medals for Phelps, and he didn't even sing the national anthem.