Sour Skittle Commercial

I selected this clip because I was watching television and it reminded me of material in class about stereotypes.

This is a Sour Skittle commercial that I saw on television and then I found the clip on youtube.com. It uses an Asian character to portray martial arts.

This commercial may seem innocent, but it is not. The commercial requires someone with martial arts for the theme to make sense, and thus the commercial uses a stereotype by selecting an Asian. I do not feel that the clip was that bad, but it did use stereotypes. I would not have noticed the clip as being racist, but I was working on Ethnic Studies homework previously.

This relates to the course material of individuals and systems. I am so used to Asians being portrayed as martial artists that I didn’t think twice about it (except I was thinking since I just did homework for Ethnic Studies). The media I have been exposed to and the system I grew up in allowed this stereotype to exist in the media. I am not racist towards Asians or think they are different then white people, however I did not notice all the martial art stereotypes before.

The commercial can be found at http://youtube.com/watch?v=JJ4Ei47EoFg.