Africa Is a Country

The 'Lost Bushmen'

The 'Lost Bushmen'

By
Sean Jacobs

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHVYYwtJAsA&w=500&h=307]

It is still okay to create the most objectionable stereotypes about certain Africans and for it to be considered fine.

An Indian soft drink company, Parle Agro, is marketing a new soft drink, called LMN, with a series of  5 TV commercial series titled “Lost Bushmen” set “… in the [Bushmen’s] natural habitat of the Kalahari Dessert.” Serious.

Here’s another one:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsFSqk4BoUc&w=500&h=307]

They were proud to announce that they got inspiration for these objectionable stereotypes about the San (Bushmen to most of you) from the film, “The Gods Must Be Crazy,” first made for the entertainment of white South African audiences under Apartheid and which became an international hit franchise in the 1980s, confirming just how widely held racist views of the San are held.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4pln0fJPdU&w=500&h=307]

And for all the claims of the filmmakers of the Indian commercials that “the Bushmen” were “specially flown in”, some of the actors seen in the videos (above and below) are clearly in black face (with cork-like black make-up and/or hair pieces). They’re playing “Bushmen.” It also turns out the commercials were shot in “… in a barren region in the interiors of Thailand.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHTX4xxpohM&w=500&h=307]

These racist stereotypes are praised by ad industry types (particularly in India) as “hilarious” and “edgy.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhaaMMOzLEk&w=500&h=307]

You really can’t make these things up.

— Sean Jacobs

Further Reading

No one should be surprised we exist

The documentary film, ‘Rolé—Histórias dos Rolezinhos’ by Afro-Brazilian filmmaker Vladimir Seixas uses sharp commentary to expose social, political, and cultural inequalities within Brazilian society.

Kenya’s stalemate

A fundamental contest between two orders is taking place in Kenya. Will its progressives seize the moment to catalyze a vision for social, economic, and political change?

More than a building

The film ‘No Place But Here’ uses VR or 360 media to immerse a viewer inside a housing occupation in Cape Town. In the process, it wants to challenge gentrification and the capitalist logic of home ownership.