The Great White Man

Has anyone not seen that new Visa Platinum ad starring Richard "I'm so fucking good-looking" Gere? Am I the only one that hates it with a passion?

For those who haven't seen it, here's a brief recap.

An Indian Boy puts his luggage away at a jetty.

An Indian Merchant leads our hero, all soft-focus and glowing, through a rustic open-air market. As he shows the White Man all the birds in cages around him, he tells him that they bring good luck.

A little Indian Girl runs past them, bumping Richard Gere in the process. He gives a bemused smile, all benevolence towards this silly little native girl who doesn't know better, and is probably too poor to afford paying for dirtying his crisp white clothes.

Sure enough, the Indian Girl runs up to a Bird Seller. "My brother is going on a long journey. I wish to bring him luck. Five birds please."

"But that is only enough for one bird."

She looks despondent, but agrees that one will do in that case. Richard Gere looks on, a gleam entering his eye. Perhaps she will grant him... favors later should he do something nice for her.

She leaves, and the White Knight presents his Visa Platinum card with a flourish to the Bird Seller. He looks at it and mutters in approval. Someone with such a card could probably buy the whole of India. And he's doing it to please a little girl. How incredibly generous!

The Indian Girl arrives at the jetty and catches her brother's eye. She raises the single birdcage in her hand, pleased with herself.

And around her, hundreds of birds flutter skyward, released from their cages. The entire market is standing there, and in a prominent position is, of course, The Man himself - Richard Gere.

She looks at him, puzzled. This is the clincher. He catches her glance, then coyly looks away and pretends to be uninvolved in what's happening. He knows he's got her now. Tonight she'll be in his bed.

The End.

Why do I hate this ad?

Well, apart from the sexual connotations which I've pretty much spelled out above, I also hate it for being ridiculously condescending. The White Man swooping in to rescue the poor Asian Girl and giving her a better life. How much more literal (and insulting) can you get?

I also hate Richard Gere for looking so goddamn smug and full of himself. Ooh, I've got a Visa Platinum. Ooh, I can afford the entire GDP of a third-world country. Ooh, you little Asian traders just love my American money, don't you?

I hate him more for the stupid coy look at the end. That just makes me want to slap him.

Is this how Asia should be viewed? As a land perpetually in need of "saving"? Are we all wallowing in such persistant poverty we need some good ol' White Man and his capitalist revolutions to lift us out of our slums?

I don't deny that a great portion of Asia is poor. But that doesn't mean that it's right for their image (real or fictional) to be exploited in the guise of a lazily-conceived ad for a product owned by the very rich.

I hate whoever thought this was a good concept. If you want a good Visa ad, try the one with Catherine Zeta-Jones and monkeys. At least that was cute. And it had monkeys, which make anything beautiful.

I'm sorry, I'm not usually so sensitive to shit like this. In fact, I got pissed in my Asian-American literature classes because the people in it spent all their time obsessing about how repressed they were by the White Man. I don't know why I'm feeling so strongly about this ad. I mean, it's just an ad, right?

But every time I see it in a movie theatre I wanna throw something at the screen.

Maybe the problem with the ad wasn't because it was offensive. Maybe it's because there are no monkeys in it.

Yeah, right.