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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, May 6, 2001

Department of Health makes questionable choices in TV ad

By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Staff Writer

It wasn't very long ago that the template for local television commercials was pretty much "minority person with a problem, non-minority person with the solution."

Sometimes it wasn't on screen, but in the voice-overs: The person with questions had some sort of a "local" accent, and the voice with the answers was decidedly standard English. A slight variation on the theme played out in scenarios where the minority person was shown happy to be of service to a non-minority person.

The insult to the injury was when actors from the Mainland were flown in to portray both roles.

But, as C&K sing at every reunion concert, life's different now.

Ads for hospitals and medical centers show doctors (and patients) of all racial backgrounds (and both genders).

Banks, insurance companies, airlines and Hawaiian Electric portray life in these islands as a rainbow of racial influences. The faces in their

30-second spots look like the family down the street, the people in your office, the folks you meet in Longs. It's careful, it's deliberate and it's cool.

Which makes one spot currently on air all the more questionable.

The Department of Health has an ad that is aimed at getting women to stop smoking during pregnancy. A noble cause, an important message. The 30-second spot shows four newborn babies in what looks to be a hospital nursery.

The first three infants are identified in a voice-over, with tinkly lullaby music in the background. The narrators' voice gives each baby a name, a name that sounds carefully chosen so as to be representative of a certain ethnic background. Then, the baby's weight is given. All three are healthy.

Then comes baby No. 4. The beep-beep of medical monitors is heard, and we know this kid isn't doing so well. The voice identifies the baby as well below normal birthweight, says his mom smoked two packs a day, and gives the baby a name: "Kawika Medeiros."

Every time I see this one, I end up throwing something at the TV. It's in fairly heavy rotation, so I'm racking up quite a collection of dings. Good thing my aim is bad.

Why the Department of Health felt it necessary to make the sick baby Portuguese (or perhaps Portuguese-Hawaiian, depending on how you read it) is puzzling. Why the Department of Health felt it was acceptable to differentiate the sick baby from the healthy babies not only by birthweight and the actions of its mother, but by race, is troubling.

The babies could have been identified by first names only ("Little Jimmy," "Little Johnny," "Little Sue"), but it seems a conscious decision was made to portray a certain ethnic group as starting out life at a great disadvantage because of the ignorance or uncaring of the mother.

In years past, this slight would probably have passed unnoticed among the rest of the insulting portrayals of various ethnic groups in local TV commercials. But today, we know better, we expect better, and we usually get better.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Her e-mail address is lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.