An argument that has been going on quietly for the last week bubbled into the open this afternoon as Vanderbilt University political science professor John Geer took questions on Twitter about the mayor's race.
An anonymous user by the name of @yellowdawgtn — who hasn't really been active since 2012 — asked Geer what he thought about an image toward the end of Linda Eskind Rebrovick's new ad, "Garbage" and whether it was "stereotyping/."
The ad featuring Rebrovick explaining that she won't run negative ads during her campaign. As she does so, she is seen riding on a garbage truck, picking up flat screen TVs and tossing them into the back. Toward the end, an African American woman appears with an old tube TV and sets it on her garbage can.
"Interesting question!" Geer tweeted back. "All flat screen tvs except for this woman. Someone should ask Linda that question."
Then Geer added this:
Here's the ad: https://t.co/8QVdjPBN1m One could argue there are unfortunate racial stereotypes at work here #AskVU http://t.co/MFLmngmUOJ
— VanderbiltUniversity (@VanderbiltU) May 28, 2015
Since Pith posted the ad last week, it has riled the mostly anonymous horde in the comments section beneath the post. We have also heard from people — not associated with rival campaigns — who say they also thought the ad was portraying a racial stereotype. If the ad has bothered other campaigns, they haven't been inclined to comment on it, on the record.
This afternoon, Pith asked the Rebrovick campaign about those charges and invited them to explain the part of the ad in question.
They sent us this statement saying they disagree with the notion that there is anything wrong with the ad, but also noting that they will be changing it.
"We simply disagree with Professor Geer's charge that we showed a racial stereotype," says Rebrovick campaign manager Ally Letsky. "We showed an older voter throwing away an older TV in the early morning when garbage is picked up. That was the sole intent of the shot and it was included with the best of intentions. We certainly didn't think the shot was offensive and have received literally dozens of positive comments from voters of every ethnicity. But we take even the one anonymous complaint the campaign has received seriously and are changing the ad. We don't want to detract from Linda's commitment to not running negative ads and this is exactly the sort of attack that Linda is talking about."
Letsky says that the campaign initially tried to use older TVs for the whole ad, but in order to make them light enough for Rebrovick to toss into the truck, they had to be gutted. That left them without screens, she says, and not right for the shot. So they went with the fake plastic flat screens seen in the ad. That worked until they got to the part where the woman places her own TV on the trash, at which point Letsky says the fake flat screen was too light and flimsy to work, leading them to revert back to the older tube TV for that shot.
At the very least, the environmentalists who had raised concerns about televisions being thrown away improperly — yup, those concerns were raised, too — can rest easy knowing the TVs were fake.
