NBC =Waaaaacist !

[TitoMorelli]

NBC called racists after 'Animal Kingdom' ad following Gabby Douglas victory


On Thursday night, just moments after 16 year-old Gabby Douglas won the gold medal in the women's individual all-around event at the 2012 Olympics in London, NBC took a commercial break where they ran an ad for their upcoming show, "Animal Kingdom". Keep in mind, this is a show NBC has been running ads for during the course of the first week of the Olympics. The ad features a monkey hanging on gymnastics rings.

Immediately after the ad was shown, social networking circles, particularly Twitter, blew up, claiming NBC was racist for showing a gymnastics monkey moments after an African-American girl won a gold medal at the Olympics. Before the break, anchor Bob Costas is talking about how Gabby's victory could inspire more African-American girls to become interested in gymnastics and then, boom, the ad (which you can watch in the sidebar at left).

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[BigTip]

Which just so perfectly illustrates how racism is frequently only in the eye of the beholder.

[badger]

I have a friend who gets to see the fall season in advance of the rest of us simple folk. Animal Kingdom is apparently very dumb and will likely get canceled fast.

[Midtowner]

To be fair, anyone who makes that connection is the one making that connection. There's a very low likelihood that whoever sets up the ad programming actually knows what sports are going to be playing when or what Costas is going to be talking about at any given time. That said, maybe this is a good case study for NBC in having someone whose job is to connect those dots and ensure this sort of thing doesn't happen.

That said, I don't think there's anyone to blame here and NBC did nothing wrong.

[jkjsooner]

Is that real? I saw that segment but obviously did not pay attention to the commercial. Anyway anyone with a brain knows it's an unfortunate coincidence.

I wish NBC would learn that African American only equals black if the person is in fact an American. I suspect the set of black girls who are inspired by Gabby will not be limited to Americans.

[StoopTroup]

You know, I'd go along with giving them a pass if what followed that segment was really a commercial that was sold and they were contracted to play the commercials that the Company paid for but that "ad" after the Costas segment was for NBC's new Fall Show, not a can of Bud Light.

[badger]

There's a reason why Twitter has been lighting up with #NBCFail since the beginning of the Olympics and it's not just because people have too much damn time on their hands.

This is a notorious #NBCFail moment. Here are a few others:

1- Cutting out the opening ceremony tribute to the terrorist attack
2- Having an ad promoting the broadcast of an event later that night of an athlete going for the gold... and then immediately following it with an ad for "gold medalist such-and-so" being on Today the next morning for an interview.

[Bourbon St Sooner]

Seriously people! The monkey in the commercial is on a high bar and there's no high bar in women's gymnastics! Gah!

[cleller]

What goes around....

[Bourbon St Sooner]

I think there was a saltine cracker add on after that Australian chick won the hurdles event last night. Racist bastards!