NBC Skewers Itself on the Barb of Racial Sensitivity

I am filing this one under schadenfreude. NBC stuck one of its lower paws in its mouth in a really big way last week. From The Examiner:

On Thursday night, just moments after 16 year-old Gabby Douglas won the gold medal in the women's individual all-around event at the 2012 Olympics in London, NBC took a commercial break where they ran an ad for their upcoming show, "Animal Kingdom". Keep in mind, this is a show NBC has been running ads for during the course of the first week of the Olympics. The ad features a monkey hanging on gymnastics rings.

Immediately after the ad was shown, social networking circles, particularly Twitter, blew up, claiming NBC was racist for showing a gymnastics monkey moments after an African-American girl won a gold medal at the Olympics. Before the break, anchor Bob Costas is talking about how Gabby's victory could inspire more African-American girls to become interested in gymnastics and then, boom, the ad.

There is nothing funny about Gabby Douglas. I watched her performance. Apart from the sheer perfection of it, I felt the same kind of tribal satisfaction that I enjoy when one of the Twins hits a homer off of a Yankee pitcher. Don't laugh, it has happened. Gabby is an all American hero. Go USA!

There is nothing funny about monkeys either. However, when NBC put the Animal Kingdom ad just after Bob Costas finished emphasizing Douglas' identity in a typical cliché, thus igniting a fire storm on Twitter, that made for something very funny. Imagine for a moment that Fox News had done something similar! The New York Times editorial staff would be all over that one.

No reasonable person can think that this had anything to do with racism. It was surely an accidental juxtaposition of two clips that had nothing to do with one another. I am guessing that the Costas remarks were live. It would have taken a very savvy and quick thinking technician to have guessed that the commercial in the queue would make for some very unfortunate culture chemistry.

Racism is a terrible thing. When it genuinely rears its ugly head, it needs to be called out. Unfortunately, it is frequently used as a weapon in political fisticuffs, mostly, but not exclusively, by the left. So Tea Party activists and virtually any critic of the present Administration are constantly accused of racism merely because they criticize a Present who happens to be an African American.

NBC's discomfort is amusing. It should not be an important part of the story of Gabby Douglas. Her racial identity is part of her story, to be sure. It is scarcely the most important part. She is a young woman of enormous talents who got the opportunity to show all of us how much beauty and grace the human being is capable of. That is an American story and a human story. It is, I trust, the story that will be remembered.

Comments

[Miranda]

Loved this post and have enjoyed watching Douglas and the entire USA team.

There was another awkward Costas moment toward the beginning Olympics. During the March of Nations, he observed Uganda marching. "Winston Churchill once called Uganda the Pearl of Africa," he said. "Of course, Churchill never met Idi Amin."

[Dave]

"Keep in mind, this is a show NBC has been running ads for during the course of the first week of the Olympics. The ad features a monkey hanging on gymnastics rings."

So, was it racist from the get-go or just suddenly become so?
Oh wait... You said it was not racist but you are enjoying NBC taking heat from people who didn't appreciate the juxtaposition.

Well here's some juxtaposition I hope you can enjoy as well.
Willard is running on "tax policy" but refuses to release more than his last years tax returns... Crazy right?

[sofia mgoliazzi]

Whether NBC lacks common sense regarding Americas still standing animosity toward racism, or whether the ad directors really do hate black people, the question here is why are we still so eager to pull the race card at every opportunity ? After all these years is our personal self loathing still causing us to play the victims ? Or are we just looking for attention where we can get it? In this case comparing a 16 year old olympian to a tiny monkey in tights.

Racism isn't learned…its taught, and in this case I'd say its the commentators who are teaching the wrong lesson…

http://scallywagandvagabond.com/2012/08/gabby-douglas-gold-medal-victory-mired-by-nbc-ad-depicting-a-monkey-doing-gymnastics/

[duggersd]

I look forward to the day when we do not refer to anybody as African-American, Native-American, Asian-American or any other -American. Some day we can just say American. I am not watching the Olympics much and did not see the performance in question. I am sure it was very remarkable. She is an athlete, pure and simple. One cannot help but notice she is of a different race than most people, but I really thought that we could get past that by now.
BTW, Dave, you mention Romney's taxes which are not required to be made public. Perhaps Harry Reid could show his taxes since he is making up charges? And for a guy who campaigned on openness and transparency, perhaps you might have President Obama release the F&F documents? And since the press has been able to get Romney's high school grades, perhaps it would be interesting to see Obama's grades from his college days? Obama brings that up because he does not want to run on his record. You bring it up because you do not want to defend Obama's record. Now, can we get back to the subject of the post?

[Ken Blanchard]

Miranda: "ouch" on the Uganda thing. And thanks.

Sofia: I am pretty sure NBC was innocent in this. What they are guilty of is searching every word of Romney for the same kind of innuendo. It serves this right.

[Donald Pay]

I look forward to the day when we don't use issues like non-existent voter fraud to concoct racially-motivated barriers to participation in voting. At the point where we actually guarantee equal voting participation of all of our hyphenated Americans, and don't try to scheme and manufacture ways to keep them out of American decisionmaking, we may finally come to that great day that duggersd "looks forward to." Until then, we will still be a racist society.

[duggersd]

Donald, nobody is trying to force people to be unable to vote. We are only trying to keep eligible people able to vote. Non-existent? Read these: http://www.ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Dead_people_voting watch this: http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/11/video-nh-poll-workers-shown-handing-out-ballots-in-dead-peoples-names/ And read this from an investigation into the 1960 election: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-09-26-jfk-chicago-politics_N.htm And we do not want to forget about "ballot box 13". It exists and we only ask people who are allowed to vote to be voting. Why is it the "ineligible" seem to gravitate towards the Democrats? But you got us on another tangent. The only racists I see are the ones who made the claim of racism to NBC. And now I hear the young lady is being attacked because she straightens her hair? Some people really need to get a life and they really need to examine their racists biases.

[larry kurtz]

I have personally been bringing illegals who crossed the border into New Mexico to the reservations in South Dakota to vote against Kristi Noem.

[Dave]

Where's the post about FOX attacking Gabby for not being patriotic enough?

[Ken Blanchard]

Dave: link?

[Ken Blanchard]

Dave: never mind, I found it. Fox News did not attack Gabby Douglas or call her unpatriotic. It was an interview and the topic was expressions of patriotism at the Olympics. The guest, David Webb, was perfectly reasonable. He would have preferred the athletic outfits in red, white, and blue that were common in some previous games. He took issue with the idea that such regalia are improper. That's all.

[primary]

There is nothing funny about monkeys? Really? Nothing at all? A monkey has never, ever made anyone - adult or child - laugh? You actually wrote that. And your editors let you get away with it. First, Gabby Douglas is not a monkey. Second, your jump-on-the-fake-outrage bandwagon is trite. The entire world knows that Gabby is an amazing, stellar, one-of-a-kind gymnast, with uncommon poise and and a brilliant smile. She is no more a monkey than you are a journalist.

[Dave]

"a kind of soft anti-American feeling" Sounds like he's calling her unpatriotic to me. The whole gist of the interview is about showing your nationalistic colors, your patriotism... And that the athletes were being less than patriotic by not wearing the red/white/blue with the USA on the front and the sparklers in both hands that the fervent nationalist prefer.