Jerry Rice, a former 49ers player and NFL Hall of Fame wide receiver causes controversy over his current commercial, “Popeyes Wingovations with Jerry Rice.” In this commercial Jerry is featured eating chicken wings while wearing a “taste mask” which includes different selections of dipping sauce and wings on the helmet “360 degrees of pure wing rotation for handsfree.” Thousands of viewers are arguing over this commercial stating that it’s a racial stereotype associating it with “black people like fried chicken.” Although Jerry Rice has been in more than one Popeyes commercial, this is the one that caught people’s attention as they believe it was wrong of Jerry to participate in the commercial.
Some of the many inappropriate comments on the video are as followed:
“Jerry just set black people back 437 years, Thanks Jerry. We’re Slaves Again.”
“All black people should never eat Popeyes again.”
“Somebody go slap this man Jerry Rice.”
While these are not even the worst of the comments, they are very unnecessary. Social Media has been blown up over this topic and I eventually believe it will pass over time just like many other commercials that have brought up controversy in the past. I personally don’t think it is right of people to target Jerry Rice over this commercial as he has been the spokesperson for Popeyes commercials and this one was only meant to be humorous to all. I don’t think there would have been a big deal over this commercial if it would have been a white football player, but in order to get the best marketing you have to use someone who is considered to be the best and someone that people admire and this is exactly what Popeyes did by using Jerry Rice.
When watching this video, I honestly was not sure at first what was so problematic about the video, it didn’t even occur to me that this commercial would be considered a racial stereotype. I don’t believe there is anything wrong with a man loving fried chicken or marketing about a man who loves fried chicken, no matter what race you are. Rice is one of the best football players in the world and I do believe he had no intentions of offending anyone when making this commercial. The whole purpose of a commercial in the first place is to advertise and promote the product and in this commercial that’s exactly what Jerry Rice was going for. They are using Jerry Rice as a celebrity testimonial in order to target consumers who are typically sports fans, what goes better than football and wings?
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