KFC pulled an Australian television advertisement earlier this month after it was branded racist in the United States. The ad showed a white Australian cricket fan subduing boisterous black West Indian fans by sharing his fried chicken.
KFC described the ad as a "lighthearted commercial" that had been "well understood by Australian cricket fans." The company stressed that the ad was not intended for American audiences.
That's for sure. In the United States, KFC ads usually pair black men with white women.
Consider the latest American KFC ad, which is for Fiery Wings.
The ad begins with a black man taking a bite out of a KFC wing and hallucinating.
During his hallucination, the black man envisions a number of "fiery" things, including red peppers, an explosives detonator, a fire breather, and ... wait for it ... white women with luscious lips.
At the end of the ad, the black man is joined by another white woman. "Colonel, you're on fire," the black man says, and the white woman nods approvingly.
A few years ago, KFC ran a competition in which the company asked viewers to spot the subliminal message planted in an ad for their $.99 Snacker sandwich.
In the ad, a young black guy and a young white girl sat on a stairwell eating Snackers. The black guy had bought the Snacker with a dollar bill he had stolen from a white guy. Throughout the ad, the black guy and the white girl both mock the white guy whose dollar was taken.
Officially, the subliminal message was that a dollar bill had been spliced into a picture of the Snacker.
A second, more subversive message was that the black man had stolen more than the dollar bill from the white man.
Reference: http://araceagainsttime.blogspot.com/2010/01/racist-kfc-advertisements.html
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