Criminal #28 Skittles ("Ah... awww...")

This one made me think of my brother, Greg, who seems to have made it his life's mission to hunt down a cheaply made, mail order, Asian suit for 30 bucks. I don't think he's succeeded so far.

So let's examine this one for stupidity first, shall we?

Firstly, "Wait, I don't have..." No, sir, you do not have a package of Skittles in you're jacket pocket. You know what else you don't have? The genetic coding to make you Asian or African American, or Hispanic. I know this may comes as a shock to you but... well, you're whiter than Conan O'Brian's upper thighs, so really, the shock of having no Skittles shouldn't come as that big of a surprise to you.

Now, yes, I know, that was the point of the commercial. Oh haha, silly white man doesn't notice three separate reflections in the mirror but he does notice candy! Oh ha ha ha! Aaah. Yes, I get it, that doesn't mean it isn't stupid. Even getting passed the idiocy of that we have to look at the certain roles being played here.

1) White man getting a nicely tailored suit by kindly old Asian man. Three cheers for White Power? Personally, looking at it, I would have to say I would have found it a little more comical if it was an Asian man getting tailored (by anyone of any race) only to discover that he has A) No Skittles and B) is actually secretly a white man (perhaps Conan could have been free to play the reflective image?)

Getting passed the all other elasticities unobservant to the white man issue for a moment, (and ignoring the fact that the Hispanic guy and African American are all like, Meh, whateves man, I'm looking pretty spiffy in this new suit. Chshaaa.) We have, yet another commercial, stereotyping men as being idiots except where one of the three golden things come in (Food, fucking, and fast cars.) I guarantee you if it had been a woman standing there they would have made her freak out. "Jesus Christ, I-I'm black? Oh my god, over here I'm Hispanic!" And then she would have had a total melt down and it probably would have turned into an ad for Always or something like that.

The next stereotype? Asian freak out. We don't even know what they're saying but I can assume it is something along these lines.

"You are eating Skittles! Stop it!"
"I am a decendant of the Emperor, I can do what I want!"
"Skittles are not appropriate Emperor snacks!"
"My uncle was Bruce Lee! My Mother is Jackie Chan! I will cut you!" *Mirror smash*

Because, in case you haven't noticed, Asians have three stereotypes as well. They all know hand to hand combat and resort to that whenever an argument arises, they're all terrible drivers, and they're all math geniuses.

Don't blame me, that's what commercials have taught me, and this one certainly isn't showing me any different as far as numero uno goes.

So ask yourself this? What was it that the Asian reflection was the one freaking out? Why not the Hispanic one? Or the African American one? If you're thinking "because he speaks the same language as the shop keeper and it makes sense" ask yourself this, why is Conan O'Brian's White Upper thigh getting served by an Asian? Can he speak the language fluently? If so, why didn't he jump in when they started freaking out on each other? I certainly would if I was in between two people yelling at each other (especially if one knew how to kick like that.)

The biggest problem I have with this commercial is that it brings up too many questions. There are all these different things going on, tiny points that counter each other, leading me to think "So what the hell was the point of that?"

Yes, I'm all for "Reflecting the rainbow" or "Tasting the rainbow", whatever. But, um... Why? Just... just why, Skittles?