What do you think?
Since the beginning of April, this Jack Wolfskin advertisement has been running online and now on TV.
Do you find this advertisement problematic?
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Why?
- colonial!!! incredible colonial fantasies of white people... sorry, but the advertisement makes me doubt whether jack wolfskin has arrived in 2013.
- because there is probably someone there in africa. that really surprised me, and i wondered what exactly was meant by the "no one there."
- that old clichés about africa still have to serve capitalist "branding as an experience" is simply weak. weak and dangerous!
- because she portrays wise people as conquerors.
- because it reproduces racist stereotypes.
- exoticism is problematic after all.
- colonialism in new, stylish, and young. it naturally sells - still at the expense of those who have always been victims of colonialism. why should i watch white people conquer the world when i can see that in history books?
- no one here? all those who aren't rich and white enough to afford leisure "adventures" in jack wolfskin outfits probably don't count. oh yes: except for the sweet little black children. consumer colonization at its finest.
- reproduces colonial-shaped images, /whites/ in expensive brand clothes and the people of colour in the familiar white charity look, poor in tin shacks, just as the /whites/ like to have "their africa," so they can feel superior and yet somehow feel good.
- yeah adventure, adventure africa is an adventure! it's nice that j. wolfskin has taken a heart and shows with this spot how, especially for many white germans (of course there are also people of color and black individuals fascinated by colonial ideas), but above all white people with fewer significant problems can travel the world, as their passport, money, and appearance allow it. it would be interesting if the empty landscape in the commercial and this phrase "...no one there" would mean in a just counterpoint that africans are not there because, for example, they are traveling to germany to explore the black forest or something else. well... why doesn't that work :) ? it's nice and good if one can afford jack wolfskin stuff... lol, in berlin i see almost only white people walking around with it on the bvg and on the street!!! hmmm, do more of these white people have money?! i know that the phrase "...no one there!" is 'only' meant as a joke. however, the current circumstances in many parts of africa due to colonization are simply too precarious to advertise in this "romantic" way. this means that those who have a non-eurocentric historical knowledge know or feel that this kind of advertising is still very problematic. there is also no spot filmed in warsaw (or in a landscape where jews lived) and then said... hmm no one there, and afterwards, little sweet jewish children are cuddled without their parents.