Racism or humour?

From the comments section;

Why do television advertisers think it's OK to parody eastern European pronunciation?

Because it's funny. Simples!

and

Meerkats speak Meerkat.: unintelligible though it may be to the English. They take great delight in sitting up straight in the company of cameras and opening their eyes really wide in order to amuse those who operate the cameras and keep their minds away from understanding their language and learning their secrets. They are expert in saying Maaa-ket like the English and find it extremely amusing.

Their accents are very distinct from those of the Eastern Europeans though they do profess profound respect for them.

and

It's a f***ing talking meerkat.

This article is beyond parody

🙂

I always thought it was a shit effort at south african accent

He really does need to get laid. 🙄

Don't know why they needed that Meerkat, must be plenty of unemployed English mammals to do the work

Yeah i know they don't work all the hours god sent and want more than minimum wage, next thing there will be shops selling Meerkat food

Where will it all end

I'm Eastern European and do not feel offended by the adverts, don't see the whats the big deal about it.

So Rudeboy is writing for the Guardian now.

http://www.comparethemeerkat.com/

Racism? since when was Eastern Europe a race?

every body is to easily offended these days and that makes you a racist. personally get a grip if that's all you have to be concerned about in your life there's not much going on

What a to**er.
The meerkat is a legend, and also a stroke of genius from some brightspark advertising exec!

brilliant adverts, love em. 😆

Next they will be wanting to ban the gollywog from Robertsons jam

They really need to get a grip. If the way I said something in Latvian sounded funny I'd be fine with them parodying that – knock themselves out, we all need things to chuckle at.

It had never occurred to me that the Meerkat was Latvian. 😯

has TJ been moon-lighting for the Guardian? 😮

😉

Stoner, I'm most disappointed that TJ's not read this yet! Right up his alley, I'd say!

Might need to try a different fly, this bright sunlight is playing havoc with the shadows on the water!

greenwells glory

I actualy thought he was Georgian, does that make me racist for not knowing he was genericly eastern european?

Handddddddddsssssssssss freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee :0 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

To my mind, racism (though clearly it's not really racism they're alleging but rather discrimination of some sort…) is negative stereotyping isn't it? If I said all black people were really clever and much better at singing than white people, would that be racism? Not to my mind though I suppose you could argue that it's highlighting differences which could be perceived as negative if you were a sensitive soul.

Anyway, the Meerkat adverts don't seem negative to me and being a half-frenchie, I thought about whether I'd still think the same if the meerkat had a French accent and no, I still don't think it's negative.

YMMV

God bless the Guardian!

no, discrimination would be saying "we dont insure Eastern Europeans because they talk like Meerkats", which would also be racist, as I quote (unfortunatley form wikipedia)…….

"According to the United Nations conventions, there is no distinction between the term racial discrimination and ethnic discrimination.
"

Unless you realy want to get into the pedantics of where the words come form racism is a prefectly good word to use to describe the feelings of certain people towards eastern europeans. Because if you wanted to be realy pedantic you could say **** is in fact a perfectly acceptable way to address anyone from the Niger Delata?

Suspect this is more to do with SEO than racist meerkats. The Guardian is adept at posting laughable, contentious content that gets people to link to it and generates a huge number of comments (mostly deriding the article). So, they would have noticed that there are probably lots of google searches for the meerkat ad, the internet meme du jour – hence article about meerkat ad with Guardian spin. They'll do this for anything from Kerry Katona and Top Gear to Israel in the quest for eyeballs.
Of course, the flipside of increasing traffic in this way is that sends the paper into a death spiral towards the bottom of the barrel.

If Wikipedia says racism encompasses ethnic discrimination then it's clearly correct and I've learnt something new today!

I still don't think it's racist though.

Don't know what the Eastern European thing is about, Alexandr and Sergei are comedy characters which are clearly meant to be Russian:

http://www.comparethemeerkat.com/meet-team

Has the Guardian become a parody of itself yet?

Quite insulting, offensive and clearly racist.

Should be removed imho.

isn't racism like art?

if the artist calls it art, it's art – it just may not be a viable source of income

if someone feels offended, then they're offended – they don't need the majority to agree or understand

i suspect giving the little shits west african accents would have been even less PC, hence johnny foreigner meerkat becomes russian

and maybe the 'joke' wouldn't work with a different accent

Lets just ban all jokes huh? 'Cos quite clearly its impossible to crack a funny w/o having something/someone as the target..What a load of b8llox..Hessian shirts & birchings all round! Oh no hang on I may have just insulted someone, somewhere!

If people find it offensive who the **** are we to tell them they are wrong?

We really should ban jokes. The Telegraph is reporting that humour is an act of aggression.

I don't understand that it is (my guessing) a middle class, white, british journalist that is talking about foreign people (such as I) should take offense for the adverts?

If I see some eastern europeans going on a strike or protesting against it – then maybe do something about it.

No respect for the Guardian, glad I canceled the subscription months ago 🙂

Part of me is vaguely embarrassed that I didn't realise the meerkat were racially offensive (I may have been reading the Grauniad for too long 🙂 ). I just saw the advert and thought the meerkat was awesome and someone had produced the funniest off the wall commercial I'd seen since the Cadbury's gorilla. I hadn't placed where he was supposed to be from or what ethnic group he was parodying at all. I assumed he was a meerkat, who had been given a strange comedy accent simply so they could use the device of supposed and to me unlikely confusion between "market" and "meerkat". I clearly don't know enough eastern europeans well enough to have picked this difficulty up…

If it is racially offensive then I venture to suggest that the offence is or should be pretty mild.

CaptainFlashheart – Member

Stoner, I'm most disappointed that TJ's not read this yet! Right up his alley, I'd say!

Might need to try a different fly, this bright sunlight is playing havoc with the shadows on the water!

Whaddya want me to say?

Rather amusing not racist but possibly mildly xenophobic. Rather low on the list of things to get ones undergarments in a fankle over

First sentence = first blatant lie. No chance that bloke has a girlfriend.

As a northerner, I'm offended by "Churchill" the dog and his comedy northern accent. Also the Admiral add is clearly offensive to senior naval officers. And as for the Martians in the Smash adverts from the 70s… well clearly that's why aliens haven't yet made contact, they're just embarrassed about out xenophobic attitudes to alien robots that like instant mashed potato.

surely the only way to find out if this is racist or even offensive is to ask an eatern european?

ok so anyone have an eastern european handy?

i thought not
thats coz youre all white middle class western european racists

Has the Guardian become a parody of itself yet?

The Guardian is different to some other papers. It will and does, publish articles by people with which it strongly disagrees. This is something which it prides itself in, indeed at the top of the article in question there are the words "comment is free", if you click on that it will link you to a whole multitude of other people's personal opinions.

It often also allows those who disagree with a particular article 'the right of reply' by later publishing an article with an opposing point of view.

I appreciate that readers of other newspapers might find this whole concept rather strange, but that's how it works in the Guardian.

Personally I very rarely read opinion articles as I generally find the endless waffling rather tiresome and tedious – although I always scan the letters which I often find can be the source of some right little gems. I only buy the Guardian because I know of no other newspaper which is a better source of news and information.

.

And Flashheart …….keep reading the Guardian …… you know it makes sense

The Guardian is different to some other papers. It will and does, publish articles by people with which it strongly disagrees.

That's the funniest thing I've heard in ages.

That's the funniest thing I've heard in ages.

Well I'm glad I've helped make someone happy today.

It's those special moments that make my day so special.

8)

ok so anyone have an eastern european handy?

Erm…5th post

JxL – Member

I'm Eastern European and do not feel offended by the adverts, don't see the whats the big deal about it.

Seriously though, if people find this sort of thing offensive, they really mustn't have enough going on in their lives.