Hip Hop Cupcakes: racist marketing or harmless dessert?

Ducan Hines, the dessert company responsible for Amazing Glazes among other chocolately-flavoured products, is under fire for an ad for their newest line of sweet sweet goodness.

They commissioned several filmmakers to produce a series of commercials for their Amazing Glazes chocolate topping.

One video called “Hip Hop Cupcakes” features a woman pouring chocolate frosting on some plain cupcakes. Cartoon eyes and lips pop out, and they begin to beatbox to an electronic beat.

The controversy is over the appearance of the cupcakes. Some people say the cupcakes are in blackface - racist cupcakes as one blogger put it. Tim Wise, the anti-racist academic and activist has a whole spiel on his site, including a mock boardroom meeting where the creator of the “Hip Hop Cupcakes” video meets with the all-white board members to discuss his new idea.

Older White Guy: “So, how are we gonna make homemade cupcakes cool? I mean, nowdays kids can buy gourmet cupcakes at all these fancy cupcake places that keep popping up. Their parents don’t want to take the time to make their own. What do we do?!”

Young White Guy: “Well, we may not be able to make homemade cupcakes cool. But we can make ‘em hip. As in, hip-hop!”

With that, the door to the boardroom opens, and in comes a white, twenty-something male PR director. He is wearing dark glasses and a Kangol cap, along with several gold chains. The young Duncan Hines exec looks excited. His colleagues are considerably less enthused.

White Female: “What? What the hell is this? Hip-Hop cupcakes? What does hip-hop have to do with cupcakes? And why is he dressed like that?”

Just then, the pitch man pipes up:

PR pitch man: (speaking in what he apparently considers authentic black English): “C’mon shawty, why you gotta be a buster? I ain’t tryin’ to hear ‘dat. Just peep this, yo: the joint starts with some lame-ass yellow cupcakes. And then, this white lady with smoove hands starts pouring black frostin’ all up on they shit. And jus’ when folks are like, ‘what the fuck is this?’ some nice, full lips pop up on top, and some eyes too! And they start rockin’ some funky-fresh beats, while the white lady is all up on the phone with one of her homegirls from the muh’fuckin’ PTA!”

Wise isn’t the greatest comedian, but you catch his drift. This is another example of the white corporate establishment’s attempts at multiculturalism going horribly wrong. For shame, white corporate America.

Or is it? Albeit, the name “Hip Hop Cupcakes” is a bit stupid. For one thing, these cupcakes don’t rap, and the beat doesn’t even remotely sound like a hip hop track. No table-scratching, no apache break, nothing. It sounds closer to some electronic beat (maybe they should have called them "Kraftwerk Cupcakes").

Putting that aside for the moment, can cupcakes really be blackface? I mean they’re cupcakes with chocolate frosting, not white people with black makeup. As for the big lips, they look a bit like the talking lips segment from Conan O’Brien to me.

Point is, this commercial is hardly a throwback to the old minstrel show days of Amos and Andy. To all my anti-racist friends out there, relax a little. There are plenty of other examples of black face in present day popular culture. Why look below.

Save your ire for the real blackface buffoons and leave the cupcakes alone. You know you’re going to eat them anyway.