Lil Wayne comes on around :35
The SuperBowl is coming up this Sunday and, as someone who doesn’t follow football, I watch it for the commercials. (We’ll be bringing you a recap of the best commercials on Monday!) One of the ads released ahead of the big game, for Apartments.com, is drawing criticism. Featuring Jeff Goldblum, Lil Wayne, a gospel choir and historical characters, the ad has a Jefferson’s theme, complete with the title song. Goldblum tours a ritzy city apartment building while playing a piano on a window washing scaffold going up the building (just go with it). At the end he ends up on the roof, where Lil Wayne is working a grill, a reference to the lines in the song “fish don’t fry in the kitchen, beans don’t burn on the grill.” Wayne says he’s grilling burgers, which is a missed opportunity in my opinion because he should be grilling fish, and then the George Washington character says through his false teeth “and beans my good man.” Since Washington owned slaves, and Lil Wayne is black and is cooking for Washington, some people are calling this ad racist. Lil Wayne doesn’t see it that way according to TMZ:
The criticism? The ad is low-key racist due to Washington’s history as a slaver, but Wayne’s camp doesn’t see it that way
… at all. A source very close to him says the commercial is “meant to be funny and silly and not the least bit offensive.”
The source added it’s supposed to be comedy, and “people need to calm down.”We’ve also reached out to Apartments.com, but no word back yet. Either way, their ad’s getting way more attention now.
Ok I get the George and Weezy reference, but why does Lil Wayne have to be grilling for George Washington? Couldn’t it be the other way around? Usually grilling is a bro activity that is more associated with tailgating and throwing parties at this point, so maybe they meant to imply that it was Lil Wayne’s place and he was entertaining Washington. Still, the ad company should have anticipated this. Just last month a children’s book was pulled off the shelf for depicting slaves as happy to cook for George Washington. This is a topic that’s on people’s minds for so many reasons. I don’t think this commercial was in any way intended to be racist, but the fact that it can be interpreted that way should have been a discussion somewhere, given how much money and effort is poured into these ads. To be fair, this probably wouldn’t have occurred to me and even though this story has been on TMZ for some time no one in the comments on YouTube is claiming the ad is racist.
I have to credit a commenter named Angie on TMZ for making the awesome point that they should have used George Foreman for this commercial instead of George Washington. Then the grill could have been a Foreman grill and it would have added a layer of awesomeness.
:-/
Every time I have to see Wayne I remember his Gaggle of babymamas and the fact so many women let him hit it raw and he looks like … well we all have eyes I don’t have the strength of character to not be creatively awful yet appropriate in describing his face, a shudder runs through me, cause remember when he went to jail and they had to keep delaying the going to jail cause his teeth were rotten and damaged from the lean and so on
*shudders shudders*
What a digression of the point LOL!!!
So you’re saying you’d hit it?
i’m sure you mean The hot scalding eye shower i want to take , which TOTALLY, Yes I do, i want a scalding hot shower and the Men in Black Forget things Laser ray to combat The Lil Wayne
Omg, you two have me hysterical.
LMAO. You very masterfully said everything that needed to be said without actually saying it. Well done, my friend.
Dude had EIGHT root canals. EIGHT.
*full body shudders aggggaaaaaaiiinnn* PLEASSSEEEE
I’m stunned any company could look at him and say yes, that is the face we want representing our brand.
Shuddering along with you!
I don’t know. I think calling it racist is a stretch. Its a really stupid commercial though.
I agree – I also think calling it racist is a stretch…. Plus, George Washington wouldn’t know how to use an electric grill, just saying. Is it stupid? Yes. But when we depict commercials of women cooking for their husbands, people aren’t screaming MISOGYNY and GENDER TYPING. So, in my opinion it’s just a stupid, inoffensive commercial. Also, I just noticed that at the end of the commercial Washington is down on a knee holding the ball so Weezy can kick it… at least there are some power dynamics at play there.
It was a play on George and Weezy (and I assume Weezy cooked for George?). I don’t see it as racist at all.
Whatever – this is the stupidest commercial ever and we shouldn’t give it any more attention…I do not think it is racist. Just boring.
Yeah same just not good at all, I usually like the Jeff Goldblum/Apartments commercials because they’re kinda quirky funny. A good superbowl commercial is Drake’s Tmobile/Hotline Bling one.
Maybe they used George Washington since Hamilton the musical is so big and has brought the whole founding fathers thing into the forefront of the public consciousness. Plus President’s Day is in February. But George Foreman would have definitely been a better choice.
True, but I don’t think Foreman would have been allowed to associate with a real grill over the one he has sold is soul to. If they were to even ask him I think he’d be contractually obligated to say no, lol
I didn’t take it in a racist or slavery-related way at all. Especially since they were standing out there at the grill together companionably; they looked like equals, buddies hanging out and tailgating. It might have seemed different if George were sitting on the couch watching the game, and Wayne were in the kitchen. George Foreman was a missed opportunity!
Now since the commercial could be interpreted in a bad way (and it really isn’t that great a commercial to begin with), they probably should have gone another direction. I just completely did not see it that way! I could have made that commercial completely innocently and been so surprised by the reaction. I guess they needed to run it through a better focus group first.
Yeah I just saw that as Wayne and George are hanging out together
Such a rediculous stretch. This was meant to be a silly, funny commercial, not some sneaky way to insert racism into our lives. I would say they chose George Washington and Weezy because the stark contrast between the two is outlandish and absurd. We need to learn to just laugh and not dissect everything to death looking for microaggressions. Btw if we want to get analytical, its hard to paint Lil Wayne as a victim of racism when he has included the abuse of Emmitt Till and Rodney King in his song lyrics as “punny” references.