E-Mobile Pulls Obama Inspired Advertisement

The Guardian and other newspapers have reported that the E-Mobile CM showing a monkey in a suit addressing an election rally was pulled. E-Mobile denies accusations of racism but has decided to pull the advertisement.E-Mobile stressed it had used the macaque mascot in several other adverts and never intended to insult Obama but had decided to pull the "Change" ad in response to criticism in the blogosphere.We at Black Tokyo applaud E-Mobile's decision to remove the culturally insensitive advertisement. No matter what others think, this is not only a Japan issue nor is it an issue that is only important to Black Americans.Some bloggers strongly disagreed with Black Tokyo's decision to question E-Mobile's advertisement. Sites such as Japan Probe believed that the average Japanese viewer could not make a connection between the E-Mobile CM and Senator Barack Obama's campaign for Change. Instead, it was felt that the Japanese would draw a parallel to the Japanese television drama, Change, starring Kimura Takuya (Kimutaku).According to UPI Asia Online, "83 percent [of the Japanese] were closely following the election coverage – slightly more than the 80 percent of Americans who took the same survey.  Japan’s expat community on a popular blog mirrored the poll’s results: “Interesting how Americans could care less about who’s running for Japanese offices, but Japan is all over American candidates,” wrote one blogger. “America is the focus of attention quite frequently."E-Mobile's chief executive, Sachio Semmoto, told Reuters: "We had no bad intentions, but this is a cross-cultural gap issue and we have to accept it. There are African-Americans in Japan, so we decided to take prompt action and shut down the ad."Semmoto said the advertisement, which he said was produced by WPP Group Plc's JWT unit, had meant to underscore his firm's commitment to change.Semmoto went further, describing Senator Barack Obama as the kind of leader who could benefit not only the US but also Japan. "For two years I've been saying Obama has the capacity to change America, the kind of capacity that Japan needs."As I have previously stated:"There is still work to be done in improving the intercultural relationship between Blacks and the Japanese. At times our image in Japan is not the most positive due to our cultural (and other) mistakes and the use of the Black Other in Japan as a tool, scapegoat, or invisible entity in Japanese media, politics, business,  manga (pix) and in other circles. This is something that must be examined, discussed, and corrected. Hopefully, Black Tokyo will aid in that process!"Click the links below for links to the rest of the story:The GuardianReutersCNN