[quote author=bairdoman link=board=meetgreet;num=1049855030;start=0#0 date=04/08/03 at 19:23:50]Shoe Sizes:
Tim McGraw: 10 1/2
P Diddy: 9 1/2
That's all it said. Not only did I take it as a penis size ad, but I also saw what I thought was them walking the thin line between comedy and racism...[/quote]
I wouldn't mind seeing a visual of this ad, but I'll extrapolate what I get from this ad.
Seems like the ad made no hindrance of the audience to whom the producers tailored it: Remember, this was an ad for a country music event.
Why the shoe size references? I'm not sure, but from what I gather, Tim McGraw is quite the country star idol himself as would be P. Diddy to a hip-hop and rap audience. (Okay, not wholly true -- I don't think much of Puff myself, but hey.) If it's fair to impose that the producers listed shoe sizes as a fabled link to penis size, which is thoroughly a prevailing symbol of masculinity (big dick = more of a man), the ad may suggest that real country fans would like real men as their entertainment stars of choice. And with a 10 1/2 size foot, McGraw's a clear choice.
But is it racist? I would suspend such allegations only because (1) we're not greeted with a "visual" image that reinforces some sort of degradation of colored musicians and (2) despite attempts at trying to decode the suggested meanings of the ad, I feel that our analyses so far aren't really all that definitive. We're trying to make sense of some numbers and some names here. I know I don't feel like these producers are making a huge affront to the Black race simply by posing that P. Diddy has a smaller shoe size and / or dick.
(Hell, we all know that popular opinion assumes that Blacks and other minorities are better endowed than their Euro-White / WASP counterparts.)
Take it as you want, though. I don't feel offended. And I'm not particularly interested in men singing about tears in their beers and the wives that left them anyway.