After surfing the cool waves of Youtube for a while, I stumbled upon this gem of a chewing gum commercial from India. At first glance, the "Hilarious India gum ad" was exactly that-highly original and admittedly quite funny. However, after watching it again through a critical lens, it was interesting to note the clear disparities in wealth between the characters. Additionally, after I Googled it, I found the commercial had been voted into the top ten on an American "funniest commercial" site. After the summary, I apply a Neo-Marxist and Postcolonial critique to the clip.






The scene opens with a young man riding across an old bridge in what we assume to be India. Half-way across, his bike breaks and he is left stranded. Of course to show us his frustration, he slaps himself.



He looks up to see a car approaching. We immediately notice that things are out of the ordinary when two men are riding prone on the front fenders, propped up like lions in front of a museum. He trys to hail a ride, but the driver or passenger isn't having any and pass him in a puff of dust.



The man is running now, not wanting to be late for whatever he must be late for. He runs past a dozen men, precariously balanced on top of poles. We have no idea what is going on, but there is a definite sense of urgency.






He passes by a tennis game between some finely dressed women. On his way through, again we see some fellows balancing on top of poles.






The camera briefly focuses on a doddering, decadently dressed old man.





Still the young man is running, he books it upstairs while a waiter is walking toward to "sultan" figure at the dining room table.





The camera zooms out briefly to give us a full view of the massive chandelier that hangs over the dining room table. We see (with a start) that it is full of people. . . people that are upset with this young man's tardiness.




The young man quickly joins his place in the chandelier just as the sultan is getting his soup served. With not a moment to spare, the young man-whats this? Pops a piece of chewing gum into his mouth, chews for a moment and when he smiles, a million-candle-power halogen lantern is bursting forth from his mouth. And "oh" we exclaim as it all falls into place. The rest of the chandelier lights up . . .





. . .the men balancing on the poles are now street lamps . . .



and the fellows on the car? We should have known, headlights.



The last scene is of some finely dressed folks dancing at a party to the beat of a thousand flashing lights overhead. We now know the cause behind their revelry . . ."Happydent Gum" and its ability literally brighten up your smile.

Wow, so at first glance, great commercial right? I thought about this for a moment and came to the conclusion that this video is equally about gum and the purposeful social stratification present in India. I believe whole courses could be designed around the caste system and the unequal dispersant of wealth present in India, but this commercial does an excellent job of creating clear symbols for the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The workers are clothed only in a head wrap and shorts, while the rich folks are parading about in gold and finery. When the young man runs through the palace grounds, we see the lifestyles of the two classes. The poor workers are balanced uncomfortably on the tops of poles while rich women play tennis and swim. As soon as the young man finds his place in the chandelier and pops in a piece of Happydent, his job becomes smiling at the wealthy folks. Wow, the commercial shows us how a thousand poor workers doing painful, subhuman and monotonous work can "brighten" the day of the rich.


I wan intrigued about commentary found about the video on Youtube. Granted, you can never be sure about where a comment is comming from geographically, but I found this one a little disturbing, ". . .genius, that's what indians are for". I would argue that on top of the unintentional message this commercial contains about class in India, the viewing of the ad by Western cultures reinforces Said's notion of Orientalism. The West views this ad and sees the "other" dressed much differently, engaging in a lifestyle obviously removed from our own. It is exotic and percieved ignorantly as being somehow "less", prompting comments like the previous one. Others commented, "lol. i love how they say "chingum" a very crude indian way of saying chewing gum. hahaha". The spoken language of the commercial is even viewed as "crude" and substandard. The commercial was put on an American website as representative of the "top ten" funniest. On the internet, the add has taken up a new life as a reinforcement for stereotypes of the "other". Imagine, if the principle characters were changed to fit our own social "system". Perhaps the sultan is a wealthy white at a country club and the men in the chandelier are black . . .how would this change our perspective?