or not racist? MONKEYS!!!! Early morning april 4th.....IN THE NAME OF CELLULAR TELEPHONES!!!!

Racist. Maybe an anime monkey would have been a less racist way to do this.

OK... monkey / black man. That looks racist to us. But we are talking about a vastly different culture here.

"Snow monkeys [like the one featured here] play a prominent role in Japanese culture; they are considered to be messengers of the Shinto gods and symbols of success and good fortune."
(from: http://animal.discovery.com/fansites/caught/conservation/japan.html )

Also read:
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=4930

Thanks for the info, Rob But...E-Mobile is referencing Barack Obama—an American—so whether they like it or not, American culture is therefore in play here. End of story.

That may be so, but for something to be really racist there has to be intent. "Insensitive to other cultures' sensitivities" is the best I can make of it. And since the thing wasn't made to air in the US at all in the first place, I'd say it's not a biggie.

Hey I know... since the Japaneses somehow get to hide behind their culture when making those stupid commercials, I get to hide behind my "cultural ignorance" when I start marketing penile enlargement pills just to Japanese-American males, or my driving school franchises, or laser-correction surgery centers that specialize is slant eyes...Geez. Mr. Gump had it right, stupid really is as stupid does.

Look like it open season and everyone want to get thier shout in.

As a die-hard Democrat and scholar of Japanese culture who has been living in Japan for many years, I feel as though I should clarify a few things about this ad and try to make some other general points. Let me say initially that Barack Obama is well-liked in Japan, and the "potential first black President" storyline is certainly not a focus as it is in our own media.

First, as Rob points out in his first post, the monkey (a snow monkey) is indeed seen not as an insulting or "funny" character per se, but one rather full of emotion and yes, sacred. There are numerous protected locations throughout Japan where they are allowed to roam free and are treated with the utmost respect.

Secondly, there are two primary reasons not to make a direct connection to American culture. The first is the one I just stated, and the second is that the Japanese are not at all conscious of anti-black racism or European-American born stereotypes against those of African descent. That is not to say that there is a lack of racism in Japanese culture, because there certainly is toward non-Japanese in general, but rather to insist that the manifold racist connotation of monkey/black is entirely of Western origin, and that association would be entirely lost on the vast majority of Japanese citizens. We created the stereotype and allow it to persist, and so to expect foreign countries around the world to not only be familiar and conscious of our stereotypes but also to alter their own visual culture to accommodate those stereotypes, I have to say is the epitome of American ethnocentrism and arrogance.

Third, this particular company has been using a snow monkey as its "spokesperson" for a number of years, long before the US had a black Democratic presidential nominee. This commercial is advertising a "change" from the big mobile phone providers to the "new" E-Mobile brand, adopting Obama's slogan and aura in a way that reflects his newness and vitality. It certainly wouldn't make sense to suddenly change their spokesperson to accommodate American politics and stereotypes.

I agree entirely with Rob's post at 4:52, except I would go a step further and say that even "insensitive to other cultures' sensitivities" is saying too much. "Unaware" perhaps would be more appropriate. Or, looking at it from the opposite perspective, you could certainly say that we are overly sensitive and the original blogpost here is indeed uninformed and ill-conceived. Further, to insist that the Japanese be not only aware of but also sensitive to our cultural sensitivities is odd coming from Americans, as we are perhaps a country least aware and knowledgeable of foreign cultural sensitivities.

This, by the way, is precisely what Obama was speaking of several months ago when he promoted his international experience as a child in Indonesia. Certainly he wasn't saying that he gained expertise in foreign military matters or international relations as the buffoons on the right and left insisted; he was saying that any experience living outside of the US, particularly in a non-Western culture, gives one insight and a perspective of both American and foreign culture entirely different than one who has never lived outside of their own cultural sphere. This is an insight that is apparently lost on many Americans, blatantly obvious in this particularly situation.

And a big "thank you" to Mark Billingsley for proving my point so succinctly.

I'm not offended because I know the Japanese don't mean anything by it. Or they try not to mean anything by it. It's a different culture.

First of all, this TV ad is NOT mocking Obama or his campaign because Japanese do not use monkey as a RACIAL insult.

This TV ad is a parody based on Japanese political TV drama called "Change" which has been on air since May 2008.

Also I would like to point out that highly-trained monkey like this one is from Sarumawashi (highly trained monkey circus), which has been very popular entertainment for Japanese over 1,000 years. It is not unusual to see monkey (or dog / cat) on TV ad there.

This is Japanese TV ad after all and I wonder why everything has to be about America ? I am extremely sad to see the post like this.

- Kazuo

Well I guess my 27-years experience in Japan has just been lost in translation.

In you dig a little deeper, one may find things "learned" from the West on the issue of class and race interesting and insulting.

It does not matter if E-Mobile used a snow monkey for the past decade, it was inappropriate in this context ESPECIALLY with Americans and other non-Japanese sitting on E-Mobile's board or serving as "foreign" advisors.

I spent 5-years doing Japanese television. There have been posters of me on trains, subs, billboards. I have been on television and on the internet from various commercials or print advertisements (including a "major" cellular phone carrier). My CM even won one of the top awards in Japan.

I spent four months at the largest advertising agency in Japan and think I understand just a wee more about how production companies and advertisers work. When I worked, I made sure that I set the boundaries on what was allowed during the shoot and in the final product when it came to my image. When I ran into issues with the direction and image the studio/station wanted to pursue, I quit.

Without "much" outside influence, how do you explain the term in Japanese for the "N" word (and I do not mean Negro). How do you explain the pecking order that non-Japanese are placed in Japan. Every country has this order, how is it learned?

Did you know that there have been Japanese working with Black organizations in the U.S. prior to the Russo-Japan War and during the U.S. Civil Rights Movement? Do you understand that the Issei, Nisei, and Sansei in the U.S. spoke/wrote of life in the US? I am sure that the Japanese at home and abroad understood what it meant to be interned or discriminated against. I am sure that the Jim Crow conditions for the Negro soldiers in Japan during the Occupation and even Vietnam, gave the Japanese a few clues on the "image" of Blacks.

I mean it cannot be all that bad since you can find international marriages between Japanese and Blacks, right? Is there a pecking order in the type of foreigner more acceptable to marry in Japan.

What do we make of the Japanese attending "traditional" and Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the US? Think that they would have an understanding of what is right and wrong.

The bottom line for me is that the Japanese have been doing well by world standards for quite some time. They must live up to world standards if they are to be considered leaders in the world. Japanese have travelled, watched TV, surfed the net, and believe it or not met a few Black folks one of these three ways.

Let's give the "Japanese" a little more credit when it comes to what they know and do not know (honne-tatemae) and instead hold E-Mobile and the team that had a "lapse in judgment" responsible.

Zurui
Black Tokyo Webmaster

"They must live up to world standards if they are to be considered leaders in the world."

Western standards are not "world" standards. What supreme arrogance is that, to want to impose our standards on a TV ad, run in their country and aimed at their culture.
PS Check some stock market figures. Maybe then you'll see we don't get to determine who will be considered "a leader in the world".

Such vigorous discourse...I think we should remember that this an ad by a cell phone company whose ONLY concern is sales sales sales...that said, "racists bastards" was maybe a bit hyperbolic.

Who said world standards equate to western standards? The U.N. is mentioned, people from the nations that observe Japan are not only from the western world.

Checking the stock market is a very western concept. Most people in the world check their living conditions to see how things are going.

As I mentioned before, let's not put the whole of Japan into the same boat as E-mobile and the crew responsible for the TV CM.

Please take a look to the discussion about this on boing boing since this post is not real: the CHANGE parody coms from a Japanese TV Drama called CHANGE!!!

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/06/24/in-japan-conflating.html

It is an insult to Monkeys everywhere!!!!

I can't say that the advertisement with the monkey is specifically meant to mock Obama, but I would say that it's more likely to mimic the new TV show here in Japan that just came out in May and is really popular. (I watch it with the gf.)
"Change" - http://wwwz.fujitv.co.jp/change/index.html

When the kid on the show was doing his campaign, there were signs that said "Change" on the podium when he would speak and it was the slogan used on the show for his campaign.

Since most/all Japanese don't really watch/care about the American political campaign and since it's usually a quick 'blip' on the news when it does happen, I'd feel safe to say, they were not trying to have a laugh on Obama's account and were trying to capture the 'air' of the new TV show here.

NTT DoCoMo is the big player here and is huge as a cellular carrier, but since the
"Change" to allow portable cell numbers to be "changed" to a different carrier...Softbank has done well and since it is about to launch the iPhone here in Japan...well

Yes, there is Japanese drama called "Change". This is yet another imitation of Obama's slogan.

This is bullshit. Aaron, and anybody else who thinks this is not racism, or discrimination at least, is in denial and has been in Japan WAY too long.

1. Japanese companies, especially the big ones, have been interacting with the west for decades now and KNOW the cultural insensitivity's in the west. From importing products to the western market, to sharing movies with the west, Japanese executives know what flies and what doesn't in the west. Not to mention the president of the this company in question was educated in the west. Come on people, they know about racism in America. Cluelessness isn't an excuse. Stop making excuses for people...

2. Do you think this would fly in the US, or the west? Depicting a major Asian politician as a monkey? Hell No

3. What I think this article fails to mention is how Japan, an American colony, gets its ideas about race and the social hierarchy of race from (white) Americans living here, who by and large don't give a rats ass about what black people think.

4. This is actually a good thing, because I predict a worldwide change when Obama is elected, and this is an indication of the ignorance to come. People are going to be forced to take a hard look at their overt racial overtones as well as their covert racial undertones. Because, at that point, you're not just rejecting a black man but now a black man representing the most powerful nation on earth.