Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Ladd Ehlinger, Jr. Remains Awesome

His attack ad:



Before you call racism, note all the honky criminals, such as Capone and Manson, whose pictures float in an out whilst the gangbangers bang their gong.

Before you call sexism, the content is no different from what routinely played on MTV, back when MTV played videos. Most of that content is defended on the grounds that it is at least partially tongue-in-cheek. As Chuck D put it "When a man says 'nigga buggin'' he's saying a lot of things beside 'nigga buggin''." As the whole point of this ad is to take that content and hold it up to ridicule, the defense should apply even more. So who're the real sexists? The people who mock gangsters and the way gangsters treat women, or the people who celebrate them?

And before you punt and call this ad "Willie Horton on steroids" be ready to have the facts at hand. It's not 1988 anymore; the Internet exists.

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