Working Day

That was great!

Now that was creative. I love it.

That video is explicitly racist toward the native people of New Zealand. Grunting natives with spears who bow to the big white man who created the island? Are you kidding?

That was OK but not very kiwi, and as a New Zealander it's a little frustrating that the maori dudes have reverse moko (the tatoos (moko) on there faces have ink where it'd be blank and vice versa).

@Jules the Natives are call maori and the grunting is pretty much accurate, it's sort of a warm up before sh*t gets serious in a haka (war dance).

Am I the only one who sees a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (movie) rip-off??? You know, Magrathea?

@Jules: the advert represents the Maori as the real "owners" of New Zealand. It may be young, but you'll never be as old as it is.

Nothing racist about that, quite the contrary. Just like the Aborigenes in Oz, the Maori have been a neglected people, forgotten by the Western world. It is nice to see them brought into perspective.

I appreciate the calm response and information about the tribal behavior of the Maori people, but the ad is still blatantly racist.

It's great that educated people might know this information but advertisements are for audiences and audiences are not educated.

If you aren't educated about New Zealand culture and if you ARE educated about western imperial condescension and racist iconography, that video is a total mess.

Navites grunting and shaking spears at the all powerful white god and then bowing in deference. If you are too erudite to recognize that most people will see that you are checked out of mainstream reality.

Of course, the reality is that most people aren't aware of either side of this argument and will just think it's cute. And I'm not arguing that it's going to cause any major problems. But I certain know there are a lot of racists down under.

Honestly, most white people don't understand racism. Even my friends. I'm not trying to insult anyone commenting here, while this subject obviously got me in a bad mood. But I really do think the person who made this video and those who awarded the prize were fairly clueless about how it might be received. A couple months ago KFC put out an TV ad with black people being placated by fried chicken. I'm 100% certain those who made the commercial thought it was cute. They were wrong.

This whole thing is about stereotypes that ring the hardes bell with the projected viewers.

Racist? Yes. There's a whole lot of that in advertising, if only because it is one of the easiest ways to spark attention to use long standing stereotypes.

This advertisement has a comic element in it, but Jules has a point that it is toe-curlingly shockingly racist and completely beside any historic cultural relevance if ever there could be one in this- Yes it is a cheap rip-off of the "Hitchhiker's-" because they knwew that that one has already prooved itself as succesfull. It that sidetracks the complete set of legends of the local people in who created that land. It even could be linked to the "landscaping" that was done for the LOTR-movies that seems to reverberate more than the far older local lore and stories.

But I still think it is tongue in cheek funny.

@Jules: whereas your point is valid, at the same time you have to consider where the video was made. In order to understand the intent of the video maker, one would have to take into account that the same stems from Latin America, where these topics are viewed in a very different manner than, say, in Oz, NZ or even the USA.

As an official NZ advertisement yes, it can (and to a certain extent has to) be viewed as racist. It is my opinion, however, that the actual video maker had an entirely different intent and message.

@Jules:
I know the guy that did the promo.
1) He is not kiwi, not an u.s. citizen, not imperalist no nothing. Just another Argentinean guy, and certainly he has no interest at doing politics or giving "racist" messages.
2)At least in here (a real free country) we are not looking at things all the time by the bad eye. This promo was done by a VERY amateur guy, he is nor white, not black, not maori, just another descendant of europeans blended with southamerican natives.
He did the composition and film with pocket money. No time to think about stereotipes. Even less possible to find a Maori guy in south america to do it.

This is like watching a amateur video made by two 12yo white kids about some kind of battle, and inmediatelly starting to say "Oh, this is racist". It's completely out of place. This is not a TV promo, they were not paid for this, he just won a competition. And they did it with what they had in their hands (just NZ location recordings and an Argentinean guy in a Chroma Key background) Is it wrong to use a "whitish" actor? I'm sorry dude, but in Argentina we have not many Africans, very little Asians, and almost not a single Maori or Pacific people.

He did the best he could with had he had and did an awesome job.
Racism? Sorry dude, we have a healthier mind in here and we don't see evil everywhere.
If you can spend extra neurons for looking at everything with a second thought, think this: The white guy is an oppressed labouring guy who is responsible (and under pressure) of finish the maintenance of the country. He works with his hands for a mayority of people, and he is even verbally and (by weapon) menaced of doing it.
It's very easy to see evil everywhere. You just have to have it inside and try to place it somewhere whenever you have the chance.

and some side comments:
Andres Borghi is not a film maker. He is a normal guy that doeas a normal job in some place of Argentina. He suscribed to the competition and sent his idea. He never saw Hitchhiker. Just got a similar idea (not very hard to think). He sent his script and won. The script had no "white guy" as the labouring guy, just "someone".
He filmed himself, did the chroma key and added himself over the "100% New Zealand" pre-recordings he could access thru the competition. The "Maori" guy where not filmed in Argentina, the competition producers gave him that footage.

This is as simple as "Someone is in charge of creating NZ and when the Maori people sees him, they "threaten" him with a Haka (that's something almost anyone recognizes, its a iconic thing of NZ) and after some looks at each other, the Maori sees that this "someone" is in fact working for them, trying to create and maintain their beautiful land. And they appreciate his effort to maintain it pure"
End of story.

I am argentiean, I live in NZ. No racism here, no stereotipes, no mass-brain-wash-undercover-messages. In here we are just happy inhabitants who shares the land in peace and we recognize and appreciate not only the Maori Culture, but also everyone's else culture.

@Jules:
"Navites grunting and shaking spears at the all powerful white god and then bowing in deference. If you are too erudite to recognize that most people will see that you are checked out of mainstream reality."

1) They are not natives, they are Maori. Maori people are Pacific People that arrived to NZ not too long ago.
2) They are not "grunting". They speak Maori and use their protocol to face another one.
3) They don't bow to a white god. Is he a god? or a labouring guy? Once Maori people recognizes who they have in front of them, they show respect to them because they have respect for all living beings.
4)Powerfull white god? I don't know if powerful, he does get scared by the Maori and he feels relieved when they recognize his work. The labouring guy is worried te be officially recognized by them, he is not putting any force against them, neither controlling them or their fate or bla bla bla bla bla....

I am southamerican (What am I? white, black, asian, pacific, neytiri?) And I live in NZ. I know both lands.
There is no space or time to victimize ourselves.

Um... wow. Although they did look like white guys with black makeup, the comments about the Maori "bowing down before the white god" are way off base.

They were sitting down while they waited for him to finish.

I might call it a stereotype a la Gilligan's Island.

"Most white people don't understand racism"? I understand that's a huge racist comment right there.