“Calling All Troublemakers”

Substitution and addition and subtraction are useful tools for thought experiments. This was my first reaction when I saw the new Puma ad featuring Usain Bolt, as well as Mario Balotelli and a few other athletes. (I have analyzed another Puma ad featuring Bolt, check it out here.)

It struck me that replacing the light-skinned, thin women surrounding the male athletes relaxing in the hot tub would provide a useful window through which to peek and explore the implications of this ad. Imagine Balotelli was not accompanied by two skinny, blond cypher/trophies. Imagine they were black, round women with natural hair. Imagine Bolt was not between two light-skinned, thin women and a third brown-skinned women whom we can barely see (she may have “natural” hair, it is wrapped, therefore hard to tell).

I suppose it can be seen as progress that Bolt, for whom many Jamaican males represents the pinnacle of success (billionaire, fastest man in the world, international traveller) is not surrounded by the same company as Balotelli. I doubt this was an accident on the part of the ad execs. However, how refreshing would it be to see him in instead in a library, say, reading a book beside a black woman of normal weight, with “natural” hair. Of course, that would never sell. How refreshing would it be to see women not as objects used to sell products, but as real human beings with opinions, skills, abilities and interests, not to mention in possession of a vast range of different body types, textures of hair and shades of skin.

We can only hope.