RUSH: I finally watched a few of the commercials from the Super Bowl, folks. We had this discussion yesterday about what a different game I saw being at Cowboys stadium and what you saw watching on television. And, you know, what you saw watching on television, you thought that it was a nail-biter, exciting game and all that. And look, again, I want to stress here, remember, I’ve got nothing against the Green Bay Packers. This has nothing to do with the outcome of the game. I’m just telling you that as an on-site spectator the game did not have Super Bowl characteristics. It seemed like a regular season game. I mean there’s all kinds of turnovers, no great heroics. I don’t know. It didn’t have the feel. I remember telling people in the booth after watching a couple series, it’s over. This game is over. The Steelers cannot stop the pass and they have an anemic offense. They’re not gonna score enough points to keep up with these guys, just isn’t gonna happen.
And I watched the game with that whole mind-set and not once during the game did that mind-set change, not once during the game did I think the Steelers had a prayer. (interruption) What do you mean the Packers let ’em back in? Oh, come on, the Packers let ’em back in, the third quarter you’re talking about here? The second half, games ebb and flow like that, there’s always momentum shifts, but the Packers have never trailed by more than seven points in a game all season. They don’t let people back in the game. And, remember, I saw the Packers in New England on December 19th, their backup quarterback nearly beat the Patriots. I mean that is a damn good team, look at all the people they had on injured reserve. The real story is the players that are potential all-pros and all-stars who never made it on the field ’cause they’re on injured reserve, that is one hell of a team and that team is gonna be pretty solid for years to come. It’s very young, got a great core group of people there, good coaching staff, front office and all of that.
Anyway, let me get to the point here. I finally watched some of the commercials, and I saw the Pepsi Max commercial, you know which one I’m talking about. ‘A black woman sitting on a park bench gets angry with her husband after an attractive, white female jogger sits down next to the couple and smiles and waves at the man. After the man smiles back, his girlfriend or wife gets angry and whips her Pepsi Max can at him. The man ducks, and the can hits the attractive jogger in the head. The ad is titled ‘Love Hurts.” And I thought, well, you know, it’s kind of funny. I was also humorously amazed at how you could use a baby bulldog in Doritos commercials and so forth. I thought those were kind of funny.
But guess what’s happened here with this Pepsi commercial? Sheila Jackson Lee is blasting it as a demeaning Super Bowl ad. ‘Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) said it was ridiculous for the soft drink maker to air the advertisement during African-American history month. ‘In this month of African-American history where we’re trying to celebrate what is good and great, it certainly seems ridiculous that Pepsi would utilize this kind of humor,’ she said. ‘It was not humorous. It was demeaning — an African-American woman throwing something at an African-American male and winding up hitting a Caucasian woman.’ Jackson Lee said she has a sense of humor and believes in the First Amendment. She also said the Super Bowl is a great time for ‘fellowship’ with family members.’ That’s why she’s so disappointed with the Pepsi ad.
Now, I have to tell you, I looked at the ad and I did not see colors. Well, I saw colors, but I didn’t think there was anything racial here. This was not demeaning to anybody. I’m a conservative. I don’t say, ‘Oh, look at that, white gal gets hit by a black guy and a Pepsi can, oh, wow, how did they get away with it?’ I didn’t see it that way. I didn’t see this as demeaning to anybody. I thought if I’m Pepsi, why do I want to advertise this product by having somebody throw a can of it at somebody? Not whether they’re black or white. I thought it was somewhat humorous, but I don’t see anything anti-black in this. I certainly didn’t see anything disrespectful. I didn’t see anything disrespectful of Black History Month in this. And yet here’s Sheila Jackson Lee, she doesn’t object to hitting a complete stranger, leaving her knocked out on the ground, she’s not concerned about any of that in this ad. The white girl’s blonde. I don’t know if that’s a factor in Sheila Jackson Lee — (interruption) what are you looking at me for, Snerdley? Well, there is a lot going on in the ad culturally. Are you referring to the fact that the black guy finds the white jogger attractive? Part of it, yes. Well, fine.
I know the demographics and all I’m saying is that I don’t see this ad and immediately have a civil rights reaction. I don’t look at the ad and say my race has been offended here, and I gotta go call Jesse Jackson, except I can’t get a hold of Jesse Jackson because he’s in Jerry Jones’ suite wishing that it was Cameron Diaz feeding him popcorn instead of A-Rod. After he leaves Jerry Jones’ suite, he’s gonna go to the Steelers locker room. That’s why she couldn’t get hold of him. Well, he was. He was in Jerry Jones’ suite with all the Hollywood types. That’s where the Reverend Jackson was. And Al Sharpton was meeting with lawyers trying to handle his IRS debt. So there really wasn’t a whole lot of people to call here, so she has to go to the media here to complain about a demeaning ad. I just don’t see it this way, but then again Sheila Jackson Lee is one of many people just sitting out there waiting to be offended. Their purpose in life is to be offended and then try to effect on impose limits on somebody else’s behavior, corporate or otherwise because what they’ve done has offended you.
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RUSH: Gary in Minneapolis. Hello, sir. It’s great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Yeah, hello, Rush. Good to talk to you again here.
RUSH: Thank you very much, Harry.
CALLER: It’s Gary.
RUSH: Gary, sorry about that. Yes, I’m thinking of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Sorry.
CALLER: Yeah, I know. His parents had a great sense of humor. Say, I’d like to comment about that pop commercial. I’m not gonna mention the name; they don’t deserve the plug. But where the woman gets hit in the head with the can of pop at the end.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: Okay, well, first of all I think you’re a little off on the races. I think there’s a black-on-white racism there. I think racism is racism. I think it was sexist. But the thing that was really bad in my opinion was at the end the black-on-white violence where pop can hit her in the head? Concussion, possibly? She falls on the ground and hits her head, maybe? Concussion, possibly? These two people sneak off. They leave her laying there. I just thought it was totally unacceptable. I e-mailed Pepsi. They’ve already got back to me and they’ve apologized to me. Whatever. You know how that goes. They’re gonna tell me they’re sorry no matter what. Anyhow, I just thought you were a little wrong on that there, Rush, because it was totally unacceptable in my opinion —
RUSH: All right. But —
CALLER: — and I think real people get hurt in real life from things like that.
RUSH: Yeah, but you agree that it’s… Sheila Jackson Lee says it’s anti-black racism.
CALLER: Nah. See, that’s what I told Bo is that we both see it as racism. I see it totally different than her. I… You know, I see saw the white-on-black. (sic)
RUSH: That’s all I said was I do not think the way Sheila Jackson Lee does. The last thing I would see in that ad is white on black racism.
CALLER: No, I see black-on-white racism. But racism is racism, Rush. You know, you went over that enough time and everybody agrees with that. But the violent thing is what I didn’t understand and —
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: — Pepsi just has no… I shouldn’t even mention the name. They have no right to show that type of thing and leave her laying there? I mean, that was just unacceptable.
RUSH: Well, probably —
CALLER: I just thought that it should never have been in the Super Bowl of all things.
RUSH: It probably disturbed you that a lot of people were laughing about it.
CALLER: Exactly! Exactly! Then I go online and they show where they show these different ones and 80% of the people thought it was funny, and it’s disgusting. It absolutely has no place in our society. I don’t care what this pop company thinks.
RUSH: Okay, well, so let me ask you: Do you think there would have been outrage or laughter if a white woman threw the can at a gorgeous black woman and decked her and then left her in the park in pain, ‘perhaps with a concussion’?
CALLER: You think there would have been? (laughing)
RUSH: (laughing)
CALLER: (laughing) I love you, Rush. Absolutely. You got a sense of humor like me, and you keep me laughing.
RUSH: How about this. I still think about that stupid polar bear commercial from Nissan. No, it’s not a Super Bowl ad. It started running during the playoffs of the NFL, but this guy is walking out of his house to get in his car. It happens to be a new electronic Nissan Leaf. Elsewhere in the world a polar bear is migrating —
CALLER: Oh, ohhhh! Okay. Yeah, you’re saving his life (laughing)
RUSH: — and ends up at this guy’s house to give him a hug for driving this car, thereby ostensibly saving the polar bear’s environment and habitat.
CALLER: Yep.
RUSH: Now, the danger there is that (laughing) if a polar bear comes up to you, don’t hug the thing! You’re gonna die. To me, it’s silly. It’s based on false premise. This guy hugs this polar bear. The polar bear’s all excited this guy’s driving a little electronic car, and that’s actually dangerous. A polar bear is nothing to mess with.
CALLER: Yeah, to say the least. You think grizzlies are bad, look out for the polar bear. They are really dangerous.
RUSH: They’re stupid! They haven’t the slightest idea what people are driving. They don’t even know what a car is! They don’t even know what an ice floe is! They don’t know what a glacier is. Hell, they don’t even know they’re polar bears, for crying out loud. They don’t even know they’re in water when they’re in water!
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RUSH: Let me explain to you, having now discussed this for a portion of the nearly two hours of this program today, let me explain to you the Pepsi Super Bowl commercial that we have been discussing today. The real point of that ad, the thing to take away from that ad was, as far as Pepsi is concerned, it was brilliant. That Pepsi ad hit the bull’s-eye, and what’s fascinating is that Sheila Jackson Lee, a black woman, is clueless.
Now, if you don’t know this, you have to understand that one of Pepsi’s largest demographics in buying the product is black females. Black women buy Pepsi over Coke in big numbers. Also, one of the biggest pet peeves black women have in recent decades is black men marrying or pairing up with white women. Just bugs ’em, particularly if they happen to be blonde. I mean that’s lighting the fuse. It’s already a bomb there, but if the white woman happens to be blonde, black women are just… ’cause they’re taken off the market. That’s another black guy gone from the marketplace of available men. So the Pepsi ad has a white woman getting decked by a can of Pepsi thrown by a black woman, home run if you understand the demographics here. So that was an ad that scored big with one of Pepsi’s demographics.
Now, they can’t come out and say this, and they have to weather all of the criticism when it’s over, with a smile and with clenched teeth ’cause they know that what they did from a marketing and advertising perspective was probably a home run. But they can’t say it. I, El Rushbo, of course, can. And you wait, you just wait the outrage to this explanation of the ad that there will be. But of course what’s new?