Re: race in commercials

Jessie Strader (jes22@COLUMBIA.EDU)
Sun, 10 Dec 1995 17:54:05 -0500

Oops and Whoops! The "updated version" of Bye Bye, Birdie (not Goodbye
Birdie) was in actually the original Broadway script (as opposed to movie
version). And, by the way, although the actress in the part was
African-American the role of Rosie was and always has been an Hispanic
character.

Don't assume grafting of modern sentiments where grafting doesn't exist!

----------------------------
On Wed, 6 Dec 1995, Rob Prince wrote:

> This is a response to Carolyn Sawin-Wilson
> I haven't seen multi-racial commercials either. However, last week I
> watched the updated version of Goodbye Birdie on tv and was struck by
> the attempt to blend traditional midwest moral values on a story that
> had a Black-white couple in the lead and where the high school population
> was portrayed as integrated with a sprinkling of oriental and Black faces
> mingled with Euro-Americans. Unfortunately the plot was so pathetic that
> I couldn't manage to even enjoy the music. Still I wondered if this wasn't
> some kind of grafting of 1990's realities on a 1950s story with a message
> being something like: Blacks and Orientals can indeed be mainstream
> Americans too if they will only stoop to 1950s - the good old days when
> life was simple values.
>
> Rob Prince
>
>
>