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Goofy foreigner commercial

A commercial for a new Sony Cybershot mobile phone featuring a Japanese guy traveling around and experiencing traditional stuff with a wacky foreigner:

The foreigner shares random pieces of trivia he knows about geisha and lucky cats, and is later amazed by the mobile phone he thought was just a camera.
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29 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - March 21, 2009 at 10:21 am

Categories: Foreigners in Japan, Japanese TV Tags:

pyrot

As there wouldn`t be any camera phones in western countries for around 7 years.

Joe

Damn, guess China or Korea won’t have em yet. (I have taken your words literally. So say we all.)

revil

Why do you have to be so frakkin’ literal?!
Montsan

You must be a blast at parties. -_-

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Charles_Nguyen Charles Nguyen

I already have a camera-phone. Now I want a phone-camera!
http://madtokyo.wordpress.com john turningpin

What the fuck is this shit?

I’m so tired of the wacky foreigner speaking NIPPONGO in ads like this. Because, you know, we’re all child-like apes and none of us can actually speak this language.

Pitiful.

kenji

And how about the way Asians are portrayed in American movies?

asian – “i have a small thingy”
american – “damn right yellow boy”

Depends on where you are i guess. I’m disgusted with the way most minorities are portrayed in US films. You can be disgusted with this I guess…

Montsan

Could you provide some examples? Not necessarily disagreeing, just haven’t seen that kind of portrayal for a while (maybe I’m not watching the right movies?).

Oh, and South Park doesn’t count.

kenji

I’m sure you know Hispanics are usually portrayed as “vatos” or the janitors. Blacks are always the drug dealers. Asians are always the shy or wimpy kids. The asian kid in Superbad? Or how about Austin Powers? You get the point…
Ikunochan

I thought Random Task was awesome, actually. Far from shy or wimpy.
_kovert

These are not good examples. All the kids in Superbad were nerds weren’t they? And Austin Powers is not exactly current (1997).
Stereotypes will probably always be used to some extent in movies/TV, but American companies will probably not try and sell a product by making fun of potential customers.
If you want a good example of Asians in American movies check out my man Dr Ken.
http://www.myspace.com/dr_ken
Ikunochan

The most recent example that I can remember as having stirred up some complaints was from last year’s “21″, where one of the prominent Asian characters was portrayed as a kleptomaniac.
Miss_igirisu

Hiro Nakamura is pretty cool…

http://madtokyo.wordpress.com john turningpin

And if this thread were related to the stereotyping of Asians as Wun Hung Lo, or Jorge Garcia and his buddies as vatos y cholos, I’d be railing against that as well. But that isn’t what this post is about, is it?
Rated-R

These ahole foreigners speaking nippango used to annoy me on the CMs until I realized a lot of foreigners out here do go around acting goofy and talking like this.

jb

sad but true

http://www.zdwonline.de Haf

My Japanese friends say I talk like a child.

http://whatjapanthinks.com Ken Y-N

Hmm, wasn’t there a big fuss recently about gaijin pestering geisha and maiko for photo opportunities?

And katakana-go really, really irritates me; even the fluent gaijins will happily ham it up for advertisements.

RMilner

Wacky Japanese TV Ads — providing vital employment for gaijin actors since 1960.

http://aimai3.livejournal.com mai

SHO!!!!

<33333

mannu

and he’s wearing a suit! he’s really good at fan service xD ~
Jackie

OMGOSH!!!!!
ITS SHO!!!!!!!!
Hes so cute!!!
hahaha lol
Funny a lot of people who commented this vid dont even know who he is”tear”
I love Arashi!
Wish they would come to the United States and performe!

Mark

Anyone directly or indirectly leaping to the defense of this commercial by citing negative portrayals of other races in other situations should be ashamed of themselves. What’s wrong with you? Are you 15 years old? Are you ‘finding yourself’ in college? (or ‘college II’, as a first/second-year eikaiwa teacher?) This commercial is nothing short of horrifying and by calling it so those of us who are offended by it are not ignoring similar instances in the media with regards to other races. This is an extremely distasteful portrayal that goes beyond comic ‘acceptability’. Similar portrayals exist in the west, to be sure, and people of the races being portrayed negatively in the west have every right to be offended and protest in a similar way.
I think that AU/Sony should follow the ‘Japanese example’ and ‘come before the’ foreign ‘people and take that deep bow and say I’m sorry…’

LB

Dear lord I hope you’re taking the piss. Because if you are serious…

“Horrifying”? “Extremely distasteful”? “Goes beyond comic ‘acceptability’”? Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot, over?

sukeroku

What’s all the stink about?
The commercial portrays a foreigner
who knows more about Japanese culture than Japanese
(I guess we have never met one of those). The comedy
is obnoxious but not any more over the top than Japanese manzai
(hint: the reaction to the keitai is pure manzai).
So because a foreigner is doing Japanese-style comedy
you are offended? Give it rest…
Yom

I wanted to get this phone but it wasnt released when i went in.

oh, i dont give a shit about the advert btw
Miss_igirisu

How can you say “with some Japanese guy”?! He is from ARASHI!!! One of the most famous bands in Japan! I bet if it was a hot Japanese girl, you’d have done your homework on it!!

ricetard

Arashi are a bunch of bottom-pirates, like any other boy band, and the presence of one of them in Battle of Iwo Jima spoiled the movie for me. The movie would have much more believable if I didn’t know about his other artistic *cough* works. I could see Timberlake doing an ad like this for example, but could you take him seriously in a war movie? Tap dancers like these fellas should stick to idiotic ads like these.

Rob A

I totally want to hang out with this guy. Goofy as hell.

Goofy foreigner commercial

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