The popular DIRECTV campaign is culturally clueless—but is it racist too? The Russian-Irish character pushed stereotypes that included criminal activities, gratuitous sexism and broken English. Tommy the Truth ignited racial tensions with stereotypical depictions, as well as garnering senior gripes with an elderly abuse gag. The Whale recruited Vietnamese-American comedian Dat Phan to play a poor man’s Ken Jeong. Yet the NFL Sunday Ticket commercial breaks the offensive mold by starring a White guy. What’s more, he exhibits virtually zero overtly negative qualities. The guy is suave and sophisticated. Despite indicating a penchant for the stock market, he doesn’t come off like Bernie Madoff, Conrad Black or even Gordon Gecko. The obligatory hottie appears far in the background. And he politely thanks the delivery person who has apparently brought a Korean restaurant takeout order directly from North Korea. Yeah, the final joke reveals the guy is wearing an ankle monitor, implying he’s under house arrest; however, he’s still the nicest character in the campaign. In short, DIRECTV shows foreigners and minorities as cartoonish stereotypes, but the White guy is treated like, well, a privileged White guy.
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