It doesn't matter if you have absolutely no idea what the lyrics in the above clip mean (I took French in school, unfortunately), but the message in this commercial for Spain's Iberia airline is clear even if your sound is on mute. Don't get it? Basically, if you are a white European infant, you can fly Iberia to Cuba, where big-lipped, big-bootied black women will massage you and do suggestive dances. Ole!
Iberia's website ran the video as part of a contest offering free trips to celebrate the site's 10th anniversary.
The clip was taken down last week after less than 10 days on the page, following a complaint by the Federation of Consumers in Action, although it has resurfaced on YouTube.
Ileana Fuentes, executive director of the Miami-based Cuban Feminist Network, said the cartoon played to the idea that Cuba was the place to go for Spanish men to have easy sex with poor, black women.
"Obviously, it is an ad aimed at the male population. It is a male, white baby being told … 'yeah, you can go to this island and these nice sexy, sexual black women will pamper you to death. They will do anything for you.' That is a sexual tourism ad of the subtle kind," Ms Fuentes said from Miami.
She called the ad sexist, racist and colonialist, saying it used "the black female Cuban body as bait for increased air fare sales. That is what it is".
Why this Cuban Feminist Network would want to deprive a little baby of favors from highly sexualized, racial stereotypes on an island vacay is, frankly, beyond me. But since we're talking about it, I wonder how many horny Spanish men pulled out their credit cards the second they saw the poorly animated, bulbous lips of Iberia's version of the Cuban woman.
[ANN]
WOW.
Regardless of my opinion about it, I bet lots of people will be going to iberia.com and not to tell them off.
According to Reuters, the baby (in part) sings "feed me mulattas … come on little mamas, take me to my cot."
Just craziness….
I wish someone would translate the entire song. And then sit back and wait for someone to blame it on hip-hop.
That was terrible. And I thought the Honey Bunches of Oats commercials were annoying.
And still some of our black brothers don't see anything wrong with going to Brazil to exploit women of color just like the white men are going to Cuba to do. A number of them probably called to complain about Iberia.
Come on, don't you know a great reggaetton song when you hear one? Geeze…