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Duncan Hines Pulls Offensive 'Hip-Hop Cupcakes' Commercial

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Food manufacturer Duncan Hines has found itself in some hot water with a promo for their microwaveable Amazing Glazes. The ad in question was called 'Hip-Hop Cupcakes' and features a set of vanilla cupcakes that get topped with a chocolate glaze and then morph into cartoon characters that clearly resemble racist minstrel imagery. The Source was the first hip-hop related publication to call the ads out for their questionable material. A blogger under the moniker Kazeem zeroed in on why the spot is so offensive.

"The racial component can't be overlooked," he writes. "It doesn't matter that they're cupcakes; the fact that they start rapping isn't too far a stretch from making them in blackface. If the icing was in different flavors, or the lips weren't so big and pink maybe we could give the ad a pass, but as it stands it's a pretty poorly constructed and potentially racist ad. I'm the last person to be overly sensitive to media images, but the frothy mix of chocolate skinned cupcakes, bad hip-hop and a long media history of depicting stereotypical black people to sell food give me reason to question the intent if not the effect of this ad." Other sites, like hip-hop blog Wooha.com, contest that the "Black Eyed Peas sound more hip hop."

After online debating continued, the company felt it was best to pull the ad altogether. Check out the spot here and judge for yourself.

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sexyder

not offensive. these are just odd singing cupcakes. i don't think it had anything to do with race. chocolate does not equal african-american. that's like saying that the rainbow equals gay. sometimes those things stand on their own, and represent nothing subversive. that is the case here. this is NOT racist, and NOT offensive. stop being so sensitive america.

December 13 2010 at 2:00 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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December 12 2010 at 7:25 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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