New Fruit of the Loom Commercial Perpetuates Racial Stereotype

On January 1st, 1863, Abraham Lincoln Issues the Emancipation Proclamation ostensibly freeing all African American slaves in the United States. In 1954, in the landmark Brown vs. the Board of Education case, the United States Supreme Court ruled that "seperate but equal" was unconstitutional paving the way for the civil rights movement. January 20th, 2009, Barack Obama becomes the 1st African American president of the United States.

Yet even with all of the historic advancements, African Americans continue to be stereotyped. In movies, in sports, on the street. Many people claim that America is a color-blind country, that we live in a society that can look past skin color and judge a person by their deeds and actions. These people are wrong.

The proof? This seemingly innocuous Fruit of the Loom commercial. At first glance it seems like a fairly straightforward commercial. Men of different races and creeds dressed up as a variety of instrument wielding fruit, hawking comfortable underwear with a rock ballad. HOWEVER, upon closer introspection, a shocking revelation can be gleaned.



The 29 second mark reveals the money shot. A green grape playing lead guitar? Okay nothing wrong with that. An apple lead singer? Totally normal. Some sort of leaf thing playing drums? You see it everyday. But wait. What's this? If you can hardly believe your eyes you're not alone. Yes, in a shocking and most heinous casting decision, the racists at Fruit of the Loom have decided to perpetuate one of the most hurtful and longstanding stereotypes of all: All African American men can play the bass guitar.

God forbid the racists at Fruit of the Loom could have an African American man playing the piano or rocking the drums. Maybe they could have put him as lead guitarist. Hey FOTL, ever heard of Jimi Hendrix? I hear he was pretty good at guitar.

It is sickening to see this hurtful stereotype still thriving in today's society, much less being plastered all over the airwaves for everyone to see. Fruit of the Loom should be ashamed and you the public should be outraged.

There is no place for this type of ad on TV. I hope you will join me in boycotting all fruit of the loom underwear until they make reparations for this blatant racist stereotype.

(Also, the African American is dressed as a bunch of purple grapes. Oh all African Americans love grape soda do they? Maybe they should just show him in shackles and an orange jump suit, eating fried chicken and talking to a white woman while they're at it. Disgusting, where is Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton on this one?)

Miley Cyrus' Bong Hit Fourth Sign of the Nudepocalypse

Sign 1. Innapropriate Text/Sext messages somehow leaked onto the internet
Sign 2. Plummeting album sales
Sign 3. Celebrating an 18th birthday
Sign 4. Drug arrest/Documented drug use
Sign 5. Unplanned pregnancy
Sign 6. Tearful appearance on Oprah
Sign 7. Rumors of a sex tape/sex tape settlement with jealous ex-lover

Not nude. For now.

These are the seven warning signs of the Nudepocalypse. The seven signs that foretell a forthcoming nude pictorial or sex tape of a formerly chaste and innocent female celebrity. Hundreds of female celebrities and socialites have experienced these signs, to the delight of the fat fingered heavy breathing perverts Googling naked celebrities with the "safe search" turned off.

The latest celebrity to experience these signs is Miley Cyrus. Fresh off leaked picture messages of Miley in inappropriate poses and a disappointingly low selling album comes the fourth sign: Documented drug use. The latest scandal to engulf Miley is a video of her smoking Salvia out of a bong. While Salvia is technically legal, it is known for its hallucinogenic properties and is drawing the ire of parents groups and police.

Miley Cyrus, aka Hannah Montana has already begun to distance herself from her formerly kiddie "Disney" persona with various slutty performances and risque internet photos. Following the latest video of Miley smoking out of a bong, Billy Ray Cyrus, her awful, awful father has come out saying he's "sorry" and "sad" for his daughter's behavior. However he is unable to maintain any control over his daughter because she is the only reason he has a job or money, or a sex-life. However, those who follow the signs of the Nudepocalypse know that this sign, along with the third sign of a celebrated 18th birthday leaves Miley only 3 signs away from sweet, glorious (and now legal) nudity.

Experts say that Miley has the best chance yet of fulfilling the seven signs and take her clothes off to make money and/or revive her undoubtedly flagging career. While many experts also expected Britney Spears to pose for Playboy and "accidentally" release a sex tape, she was able to mount a somewhat successful comeback and delay the inevitable for another 5 years. At which point her body will be wrinkled, stretched to the point of Danielle Staub.

Air Drum Solo Gone Wrong Leads to 14 Dead, 33 Injured

Phil Collins causes carnage on I - 805

Tragedy struck the greater San Deigo area today as an ill-timed air drum solo led to a thirteen vehicle pile up on the 805, causing multiple fatalities and clogging rush hour traffic. Witnesses say that the initial cause of the accident was a pickup truck that seemed to lose control for no reason. The truck then careened into a charter bus full of senior citizens, flipped over and burst into flames. The resulting carnage involved 12 other cars, a tractor-trailer and a bus.

Early reports from the San Deigo Police Department indicate that the cause of the accident was an air drum solo during Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight". The driver of the pickup truck, Steve Dubinski, age 32, suffered only minor injuries and was taken into custody where he revealed that the loss of control was caused by an errant drum solo. His statement first taken by the SDPD, has now been released to the media.

"Well I was listening to 101.5 KGB and they had that Phil Collins song on, In the Air Tonight, the one about the guy who was drowning, and well that part came on where the drums first kick in, you know the part in the movie 'Hangover' where Mike Tyson does it, although he doesn't punch out Zach Galifinakis at the end like he appears to in the trailer which I thought was kind of a rip-off because that was way funnier than how he did it in the actual movie. Anyway I took my hands off the wheel to do it, because I was trying to impress this chick who was in the truck with me, and it looks way cooler if you do it two handed, and I must have hit a pothole or something cuz I was half way through the solo and the truck veered to the right and hit this bus. I tried to finish the solo but the truck was airborne at this point and I think i missed the last beat. When I woke up there were sirens everywhere and the song was over."

The passenger, Theresa Douglas, age 21, suffered a lacerated face but is expected to make a full recovery. The names of the deceased have been withheld as family has been notified, but most of the fatalities were a result of the senior citizens bus rolling over an embankment.

San Deigo Police Chief William Lansdowne was unavailable for interview but records indicate that this is the third such incident involving air-instrument-solo's gone wrong to strike San Deigo this year. The death total now stands at 45 with 89 injured and over 10 million dollars in property damage. 

Mr. Dubinski is being held without bail on 14 counts of vehicular homicide and reckless driving.

Rob Sheffield Has Never Actually Listened to a Morrissey Song

"At this point, she's like the new Morrissey, except with even more eyeliner." - Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone.

Rob Sheffield, worse than Hitler

It would be easy to dismiss this quote as: ill-conceived; a desperate ploy to sound hip; a failed attempt to score indie cred, or; worse than Hitler, and all of the preceding quips would be completely justified. However, for a magazine that prides itself for raking musicians over the coals for songwriting faux pas, a quote this horrible must be thoroughly and utterly deconstructed.

Now in theory, comparing a musician like Taylor Swift - a celebrity dating, female pop-country starlet who rose to immense fame by writing songs about boys, losing boys, falling in love with boys and thinking about boys, and whose albums have consistently reached the top of the US charts to Morrissey; the asexual(?) heterosexual(?), bisexual(?), homosexual(?), celibate, pale, pompadoured former lead singer of the Smiths, whose work has been labeled as some of the most influential in all of popular culture but who never had an album reach higher than #55 on the US Billboard charts - seems completely and utterly moronic. But actually in practice it turns out that it's much, much worse. In fact it's so bad that it needs its own list of things that it is, in fact, worse than.

Things that this quote is worse than:
Hitler
9/11
Osama Bin Laden
Socialism
Kurt Cobain being named the 12th greatest guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone
George Bush's grasp of the English Language
Paul Krugman's grasp of economic theory
Pitchfork's genuine disregard and contempt for music and humanity in general
The Devil
Larry the Cable Guy's stand-up
Tyler Perry
The Show Lil'Bush
Ja'Rule
Limp Bizkit's cover of "Behind Blue Eyes"
L33t speak
People who tailgate
The fact that the sun will explode in 5 billion years destroying the entire solar system
The Crusades
Romantic comedies starring Sandra Bullock
Seeing your parents naked
Aids
Tucker Max's views towards women
MTV's Director of Programming
The slow and inevitable aging process that is slowly destroying your body and leaving you old, wrinkly, and impotent
Waterboarding

The quote is so offensive that the only explanation is that Rob Sheffield has never heard a song by Morrissey or the Smiths. This would make sense as neither of those is the Arcade Fire or Lil Wayne.

To paraphrase Wayne Campbell, "If Rob Sheffield was an ice cream flavor he'd be pralines and total sell-out in order to capitalize on Taylor Swift's burgeoning popularity."