The nation's bloggers and some other easily offended people with access to computers recently picked up on an advertisement for Absolut brand vodka that ran outside the United States; for the Pat Buchanans of the world, it seemed to heighten the menace posed by America's greatest military threat: Mexico.
The advertisement depicted a map of the Mexican border extending to the Pacific Northwest and through the Southwest, with the words "In An Absolut World" running across it. Maybe if the company had put the words in Spanish, no one would have caught on.
Absolut's advertising campaigns have long tried to equate the word "Absolut" with "perfect," and the message of this specific campaign was somewhere along the lines of: In a perfect world, Mexico would not have lost the Mexican-American War. A closer reading of it might be: In a perfect world, the Americans wouldn't have been such dicks and stolen your land. And our vodka company understands this.
But after complaints from a conservative columnist and dozens of boycott threats, Absolut was browbeaten into an apology.
"In no way was it meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues," Absolut said in an attempt to repel any and all criticism that might come its way.
The company probably wanted to finish off its disclaimer with a statement about consuming alcohol while pregnant and drinking responsibly.
While the advertisement was not supposed to offend, disparage, advocate, lend support to, reflect or even influence consumers in any way, Absolut acknowledges that the campaign was intended to evoke "a time which the population of Mexico might feel was more ideal."
It was a time before the United States claimed that Mexico invaded our territory and shed American blood. In fact, the territory in question was very much in dispute because no one had ever agreed on where Mexico ended and Texas began. When Mexico refused to sell its North American territory, President James Polk sent troops hoping there might be a skirmish that would give the United States a justification for war.
There was a war, and Mexico lost 40 percent of its territory, which is why we don't attend the University of Central Mexico.
Granted, the Mexican government was extremely unstable at the time. In 1844, it went through four presidents, compared to the modern-day United States that will stick with even the worst of presidents for eight years. The American-populated independent country of Texas already revolted successfully, and Mexico probably wouldn't have been able to hold down the rest of its land for long.
In the end, the Absolut ad only reminded Mexicans of what everyone already knows: America has a long history of taking land from the people who were there first. Still, I imagine that people would have been less upset - 63 percent of people in a Los Angeles Times online poll planned on boycotting the product - if the advertisement hadn't touched on immigration issues. Had the campaign been targeted toward American Indians and portrayed an "Absolut World" as one where indigenous people had not been given blankets infected with smallpox, the reaction would have been less vehement.
After all, as far as America is concerned, the American Indians have their reservations and casinos and don't really have the population necessary to bother anyone. But Absolut's Mexico campaign managed to hit conservative America's sore spot: immigration.
The real issue with the advertisement wasn't the implication that Mexico wants to take military control of the land, but that Mexico has already started to do this by populating us with its emigrants.
The people angry about this ad are the people angry about the American Southwest's large Hispanic population, and the detriments to our nation they imagine would result from this immigration.
Absolut shouldn't have had to apologize for offending bigots - this is like apologizing for making a hemophiliac bleed. But if they feel the need to placate this segment of the population, it would be easy. Just make a map that has all the continents labeled "The United States of America." And that would be an Absolut world.
- Laura Reeve is a sophomore majoring in communication. Her column, "Folk Laur," runs Wednesdays.
