SNL Sketch About 'The One Black Guy In Every Commercial' Is Uncomfortably Close To The Truth

TBI ^ | 2-13-2013 | Jim Edwards

[blam]

SNL Sketch About 'The One Black Guy In Every Commercial' Is Uncomfortably Close To The Truth

Jim Edwards
Feb. 12, 2013, 9:25 AM

This weekend, Saturday Night Live regular Kenan Thompson did a Weekend Update bit as "Corey," "the one black guy in every commercial."

Corey's life consists playing drums at Venice Beach, DJing, and partying with "Hispanic girls with bangs and thrift-store outfits, and white guys who dance while wearing fedoras!"

He also notes, "This year I was in 14 commercials and I was also the one black guy in a college brochure!"

Jamison Reeves / YouTube

Jamison Reeves

If any of this sounds familiar, or even looks familiar, that's because it is. There is, in fact, an actor whose life is astonishingly like that lived by "Corey."

His name is Jamison Reeves, and prior to 2010 he did 14 commercials in one year, and has done more than 40 over his career. He told Adweek's Barbara Lippert that he always gets booked as "a non-threatening entity":

"I'm the quirky guy with the glasses. Not the guy who's going to be in a fight. I seem like the type guys want to hang out with. I'm the one acceptable black friend."

He's done work for Bud Light, Time Warner, Honda and State Farm. Currently, his LinkedIn profile lists him as a session director at Mimi Webb Miller Casting, and he also coaches others on how to book commercials and other auditions.

The ad business is often accused of being racist, and Reeves' career is in some ways the anecdotal proof: How else to explain why, with thousands of other black actors available for work, one man booked all that work with the same look and the same style?

[brownsfan]

**** From many observations, the feeling is mutual.
There have been many reports of less than courteous treatment of “whitey” by the “obama demographic”. ****

And for Obama, the community divider, it’s mission accomplished.

[GraceG]

“Blacks are less than 13% of the population.”

BLTG Sammiches are around 5-10% of the population, so this means there should be two of them in every commercial...

Maybe an enterprising black man or woman or BOTH could sell themselves even better as to represent even MORE of the minority extra bonus if they are a member of the ROP....

[GraceG]

[ It’s funny that whenever you see a commercial with a group of four or five people, one is always black. Sometimes there is also an Asian.

In real life, I have almost never seen a group of people out in public with a token black “friend.”

But I have asked myself: Why is this black person hanging around with all these white people? What’s a matter, don’t they have any black friends that can hang around with? Are they ashamed of being black? ]

I know a group of friends with one black guy in it and he is there for precisely the reasons you cite above because he doesn’t buy into the whole “gangster” culture stuff and he is ashamed of it.

[BO Stinkss]

"It's funny that whenever you see a commercial with a group of four or five people, one is always black." T is for Token

[Uncle Lonny]

Yep.

And this site tracks it.

http://www.antiwhitemedia.com/

[drjimmy]

Just re-emphasizes how divorced from reality television is.

Because "My Mother the Car" didn't emphasize that enough.

[WKB]

100% correct 90% of that 13% live where we do.

[Uncle Lonny]

Yep.

And this site tracks it.

http://www.antiwhitemedia.com/

[Nea Wood]

All of these twenty-something white guys looking like idiots, while a black woman looks at them with contempt.

Reminds me of a commercial I saw about a bunch of idiot white guys camping out in a store parking lot to be first in line when it opened. From inside the store, a black female shopper looked at them with contempt. SHE was smart enough to know that the store was open 24 hours.

Then there's the one with a dumb white male and a black couple. The black couple are attractive and well dressed. Both the white guy and the black couple have the same camera, but the stupid white guy had paid more because he bought his from the wrong store. They're all standing on a cliff trying to take pictures, and the idiot white dude trips and tumbles down the cliff. The black couple make no move to help him but just shake their heads at his stupidity and go on taking pictures.

I'm sure we've all seen similar ads. An alien who monitored our commercials would be convinced that all blacks are brilliant and hardworking, while whites are either criminals or clumsy dumb doofuses. Yet still, blacks manage to complain that commercials are racist.

[PapaBear3625]

And that one black guy, is usually in charge. Same for TV shows. Cry me a f’n river.

Seems like whenever there's a minor role which is an authority figure (police chief, judge, doctor) they decide this is a good part to give to a black actor/actress.

[hecticskeptic]

On a somewhat related note, I sure hope that SNL recognizes the comic value in doing a skit that parodies the exchange that Bill Nye The Science Guy had with with the idiot on CNN a few days ago..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObU7awpJctQ (‘The Science Guy’ doesn’t correct the CNN host when she suggests that an asteroid approaching earth is the result of glowbull warming.)

Stupid CNN host: So Bill, there’s a meteor heading towards the earth. Is this related to global warming or something different? Bill Nye: IT’S ALL SCIENCE! And, by the way, meteor and meteorology come from the same root, so they are related.

[Mpatl]

Boortz has rightly pointed out that on those home security ads(like ADT) that the thief is always a white guy. He makes so much fun of it. I already miss Neal. Somebody had to say it, and he usually did.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I remember when there were no blacks in TV commercials.

[yarddog]

I remember thinking that Black promotion in the media is so prevalent that it is almost as if they are told to do that.

One day I realized that it is written down. A contract for one of the major networks flat out told the new employee that his retention and promotion would be based on how well he facilitates affirmative action. I can’t remember the exact language and it was not the exact words, “affirmative action” but it was clear what they meant.

[Prospero]

Tragic, isn't it?

Barack Obama has set race relations back sixty years, without the extant Black communities and extended families and other functional (albeit segregated) institutions that had climbed out of the slime of Reconstruction.

The color-blind society is openly held in contempt by the likes of the people working around Obama. They will tell you this, proudly.

The zipper-heads who failed to carry out the responsibility of their voting franchise, coupled with the evil organized crime based on the ACORN model unleashed a terrible dynamic.

Then again, they are more the rash than the underlying disease, I guess. It's America that is sick at heart.

Side Bar: Perhaps someone can tell me... Are there more ex-convicts and felons involved in community organizing, professional Alinsky cadres like the spawn of ACORN, then there are in high-end Las Vegas-class mobs?

[Sloth]

So what’s the subliminal bit?

[ConservativeStatement]

Depends on the ad. I remember years ago, before Flo became the face of Progressive, there was an for that company in which a which watched her BF through a computer webcam. She then created an on-line scissors and used it near his private parts because she suspecting him of cheating. Currently, on Progressive, males are lit on fire in TV ad. The subliminal ad is typical of Dems: some people can be targeted and some people are off-limits (victims). You would never see an ad today where a man slapped a woman in the face (reverse of the Fiat Ad). Nor should we, that is vulgar but again, in the eyes of some, certain images are allowed.

[ConservativeStatement]

The first sentence should read (spell check boxed each word): I remember years ago, before Flo became the face of Progressive, there was an ad for that company in which a female

[Lancey Howard]

What’s ironic is, it’s getting to be that there’s one token white guy in a lot of commercials and college brochures. And in the commercials, it’s usually the white guy who is the doofus, klutz, or nincompoop who is the butt of the joke.

[tayper]

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