FoxyPimples break out in India
Posted by Fred Patten on Wed 19 Feb 2014 - 21:26 — Edited by GreenReaper as of 21:29
The January 23 issue of India’s Animation Xpress reports that the makers of anti-pimple cream Garnier Pure Active have hired the FoxyMoron digital advertising agency in Mumbai and Gurgaon to create a Hindi Facebook and YouTube advertising campaign for it. FoxyMoron has used “layered animation” to create “illustrated comic strips of iconic Bollywood characters” disfigured by pimples. It’s not anthro, but it is truly you-have-to-see-it weird. [Video 1 - 2]
There is nothing anthropomorphic about this except the name of the creative studio. Are we insulted by the name “FoxyMoron”? Have they ever done anything with cartoon foxes in it? (It probably started out as a play on "oxymoron", but still ...)
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Fred Patten — read stories — contact (login required)a retired former librarian from North Hollywood, California, interested in general anthropomorphics
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From the looks of the second video, some of the actors have been using skin-whitening creams, too.
Did you notice that all of the dialogue seems to be in Hindi, except for the word "pimples" in English? Don't the Indians have their own word for pimples? (Or words; there are 22 official languages in India.)
Fred Patten
In most places of India where Hindi is spoken, so is English. Modern culture here combines both languages to give you something unique. Not one, not the other.
As far as I can tell, English is used pretty much as a 'lingua franca' across India. At least, the Indian trailers for animated films and Indian animated TV advertisements (which are about all that I ever watch) are mostly captioned in English with a little dialogue in Hindi, or occasionally in Tamil, Malayalam, or one of India's other regional languages. The British ruled India during most of the later 19th century and early 20th century, when it was more of a conglomeration of over 500 kingdoms, sultanates, principalities, ... (whatever you call a state ruled by a nawab or a maharajah), and so on, with I don't know how many different languages; and the British educated everybody (well, the upper classes) in English. When India became a single independent nation in 1947, it was easier and less divisive for everyone to go on using English for inter-regional communication than to try to make any one language official across India. Technically, Hindi is, but it does not seem to be used in practice except in the naturally-Hindi-speaking northwest.
Fred Patten
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