If there's parity in power and respect, edgy humor has a place

There's a billboard that has struck me as odd since I first noticed it a few weeks ago. The billboard shows a bright red Dodge Durango and says, "A big fat juicy cheeseburger in a land of tofu."

There is a lot to ponder in such a sign.

Just yesterday there was a story in the paper about the possibility of a class-action suit against fast-food makers on account of Americans reaching new levels of obesity.

Then there is the dual excess thing. A huge, gas-guzzling SUV selling itself by association with an artery-clogging, environmentally challenged meal. You have to respect that kind of honesty in advertising.

But the thing that got my attention first was that the first place I saw this billboard was right in the middle of Beacon Hill, a neighborhood notable for its large Asian-American population.

The sign is across the street from a market that has tofu up front. You walk in the door and there the tofu is, in a refrigerated case in the front of the first aisle.

I mentioned the sign to one of the clerks. He said I was making him hungry. I asked a few more people, expecting that someone might have found it curious, but no one did. Maybe it's just me.

I don't think the sign is racist, or that it even has Asian Americans in mind. In fact, I'm pretty sure whoever created it didn't think at all about Asian Americans. That was part of what felt curious, that lack of concern.

You've been reading about the protests over T-shirts from Abercrombie and Fitch. Unlike the Durango ad, the shirts could be considered an affront to an entire race. What the makers had in mind was a bit of irreverent fun, and they offered in their defense the fact that the shirts were thought up by a Korean-American designer.

When the first protests against the shirts happened in the Bay Area, a friend in San Francisco sent me links to a couple of stories. In both, the reaction of Asian Americans was mixed.

I asked the clerk at the grocery store on Beacon Hill if he'd read anything about the Abercrombie and Fitch T-shirt mess. He had, but he couldn't understand what the fuss was about. "I'm Chinese. It doesn't bother me. You don't like it, you don't buy it."

A lot of defining what's offensive has to do with the relationship between the parties on either side of the communication. If the relationship is good, there can be room for humor with an edge.

When there are differences in power or respect, or when there are unresolved conflicts, funny isn't always funny.

This is true in relationships between groups and relationships between individuals, and it is complicated because groups are made up of individuals whose life experiences don't all match.

In March, a group of students at the University of Northern Colorado named their intramural basketball team "The Fighting Whites," as a protest over a local high school's use of Reds for its teams.

The students — many of whom are Native American — started selling T-shirts with the image of a white man in a suit and tie, the team's name and motto: "Every thang's going to be all white."

Thousands of orders for the T-shirts flooded in. White people loved it. There were a few who took offense, but mostly people got the point, and having no reason to feel threatened by Indians, they were fine with it. Besides, there are white members of the team, too.

Look at the way men and women view media images of themselves. Men are dominant in our society, so women rightly feel unease when a bunch of men create advertisements that portray women in negative ways.

It's just not the same when men are portrayed as boobs.

Any group that feels unfairly treated can get touchy about how it is portrayed.

DaimlerChrysler got stomped on by hunters for part of its Jeep ad campaign.

The commercial showed Jeep drivers transporting deer to an area where there is a "No Hunting" sign, suggesting that people who thwart hunters are heroes. After a big, organized protest, the corporation pulled the commercial.

So at least one downtrodden group has some clout. Maybe it's because they eat cheeseburgers.

Jerry Large can be reached at 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists.