If you’ve been watching television for the last few days, you’ve
probably seen the ad for Chio chips. It’s a departure form the usual ads
we see these days, in that it sets up a little storyline: a young man robbed
of his tasty bag of chips by an old apparently disabled elderly woman shuffling
down the street – the advertiser’s point being that the chips are
so irresistible that even respectable old ladies would do the unthinkable and
steal to taste it.
Presented like that it seems to be a harmless little slice of fiction,
but the ad has generated some heat on the morning talk show circuit. And now
Stephen Okeke, the one who first criticized it has issued a press release from
an association he calls The Association for Fair and Equitable Representation
in the Media, AFFERM. Okeke’s release says the ad deplores older persons
and debases their value in the society. He defended his position when we spoke
to him today.
Stephen Okeke, AFFERM
“These advertisements I think are very insensitiveness and insults
our sensibilities.”
Jules Vasquez,
“How so?”
Stephen Okeke,
“In the sense that our elders, remember this is Belize, there are
certain things we respect here which in other cultures it may mean little but
here we respect elders and we look forward to elders as moral standards as embodiments 
of morality, respect, and what young people should look up to as role models
and where here we are depicting an old woman, an elderly person, as celebrating
criminality, enjoying criminality and suggesting that this is an example of
what our elders are like. I think it goes beyond what should be acceptable.
Remember, what advertisements do is to caricature our everyday experiences
and culture in order to create attention for the product sometimes that caricature
could be distasteful.”
Jules Vasquez,
“You realize it is an ad we are talking about, it is a 45 seconds ad we
are talking about. I mean we di trip about an ad. However you will accept that
the Belize you imagine with such great respect for its elders is not regrettable,
unfortunately is no longer that way and in fact you are clinging to an illusion
and that ad in no way changes my opinion of my grandmother and my children’s
opinion of their grandmother because it is an ad, it is just a little slice
of fiction to sell a product, it is harmless in that regard. How do you respond
to that?”
Stephen Okeke,
“Well that is why people who do ads that sell also study psychology
and they know that beyond your conception, your perception of what you think
you are thinking, I could also make you believe what I want you to believe and
make you believe it is actually your idea. So whether you believe it doesn’t
change your children’s perception of what grandmother should be, that
is what you believe. We know children are impressionable. You ask them does
it change that and they’ll say daddy no but we know it is not so because
there is science that proves otherwise. So while I may say it does not change
my perception of what Belizean grandmothers and elders are like, remember we
are fighting for the minds and hearts of the young people.”
Jules Vasquez,
“The entire western culture and the media model is based on glamorizing
anorexic white women as the standard of beauty, you know that.”
Stephen Okeke,
“I know that but when it crosses a certain line we say.”
Jules Vasquez,
“What line is that, that’s an imaginary line.”
Stephen Okeke,
“This line is not imaginary. This particular ad is offensive and insulting
to our senior citizens and it insults our intelligence.”
After that testy little exchange Jules Vasquez and Okeke made up over
a bag of Chio chips. The producer of the ad Denvor Fairweather of 13 productions
says that it was meant as a little comedy and as far as he knows there is no
plan to re-tool it.
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