These ads for the Utah State Fair were pulled from television this past week and the actor who stars in them, Markus T. Boddie, wonders if it might not be racially motivated. Utah State Fair Board members claim the ads “weren’t right” and found them offensive. I think they’re hilarious. They were directed by Jared Hess who helmed the equally quirky Napoleon Dynamite.

Boddie’s performance in the commercials is the stuff of superstardom. Boddie says he was channeling his inner “Barry White.”

“The spirit that we were trying to go for was the old ‘70s singers,” Boddie said. “They were ultrasmooth, ultracool and they could say anything and make it sound good.”

Director Hess expressed concern that the ads were pulled because Boddie is Black.

The ads have been replaced with a little white girl grooming a cow.

If the Utah State Fair is even half as fun as these ads, I’d consider going. Big mistake for pulling them.
 

Well sure, the ads would be good if their target market was ironic white hipsters. I guess. Or say, anyone with a modicum of semi-intelligent humour.

Jared Hess the director of the ads has done other ad campaigns in the past, using his Napoleon Dynamite character, for the Utah State Fair and they were very successful.

These ads are too good to be wasted on Utah.

Maybe they were just too sexy for prudish Utah.  I can actually understand them pulling the ads based on the kinds of people that go to state fairs (is that stereotyping?)  It may be less about race and more about appealing to all the “squares” that live outside of SLC (of course, race could be part of that equation too.)

I have a feeling they were pulled because people thought they would not appeal to the target audience, yes part of that reason might be that the target audience is mostly white.

There are legitimate reasons to want to use a white person instead of a black person, I don’t see anything wrong with this. Not everything has to be twisted into something evil.

Rider,

if it’s a simple question of them not appealing to a target audience, why did Board memebers call them “offensive”? There’s a value judgment being made. Who would be offended by these ads?

Maybe they saw Gentleman Broncos, and decided they didn’t want to the fair to be associated with the guy who directed that in any way…

I actually liked Gentlemen Broncos.

loved gentlemen broncos, can’t stand mormons!

A man seductively caressing a pig while singing a sexy love song to it might considered offensive in highly conservative religious state.  And come on just watch the second one and tell those sexual innuendos would not offend even liberal religious types. 

Again not sure why people are trying to make a conspiracy out of this.  For whatever reason they didn’t like the ads and choose not to run them.