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Spanish
Airline Removes Racy Cuba Ad
Spanish Airline Removes
Ad Criticized As Promoting Sexual Tourism
to Cuba
By Daniel Woolls, Associated
Press Writer, May 23, 2007. Yahoo!
News.
MADRID, Spain (AP) -- The Spanish airline
Iberia has withdrawn a cartoon ad that depicts
a baby boy frolicking on a beach with buxom
black Cuban ladies after consumer groups
complained it is insulting to women and
encourages sexual tourism.
The pair of women -- with exaggerated lips
and tiny, tight shorts on broad hips --
massage and pamper the white Spanish infant
after he arrives in Havana on a free trip
from Iberia. At one point, lounging at a
seaside bar, he sings "Come on honey,
take me to the crib."
Iberia's web site ran the video as part
of a contest offering free trips to celebrate
the site's 10th anniversary. The clip was
yanked last week after less than 10 days
on the page, following a complaint by the
Federation of Consumers in Action, although
it has resurfaced on YouTube.
Ileana Fuentes, executive director of the
Miami-based Cuban Feminist Network, said
the cartoon plays to the idea that for Spanish
men, Cuba is the place to go for easy sex
with poor, black women.
"Obviously, it is an ad aimed at the
male population. It is a male, white baby
being told ... 'yeah, you can go to this
island and these nice sexy, sexual black
women will pamper you to death. They will
do anything for you.' That is a sexual tourism
ad of the subtle kind," Fuentes said
from Miami.
She lambasted the ad as sexist, racist
and colonialist, saying it uses "the
black female Cuban body as bait for increased
air fare sales. That is what it is."
Other cartoons in the Iberia ad campaign
showed a sheep winning a trip to New York
and singing rap songs with young black men,
and a vacuum cleaner being transported to
Buenos Aires for tango dancing. They apparently
raised no stink. Only the Cuba ad did.
An Iberia official speaking on condition
of anonymity said it was only meant to be
amusing and the company withdrew it as soon
as complaints started coming in. "We
do not want to offend anyone," the
official said.
The Federation of Consumers in Action said
the ad violates a 1988 Spanish advertising
law that makes it illegal to insult specific
groups of people. In this case, the victims
are Cuban women and women in general who
work in the tourism industry, said federation
spokesman Ruben Sanchez.
He said it was certainly not Iberia's intention
to encourage sexual tourism to Cuba, but
the effect was to give the wrong idea about
the island nation and its women.
"The effect is to perpetuate the denigrating
cliche that Cuba is a country where there
is a high level of prostitution or where
women are waiting around for tourists to
arrive and be at their disposal. And that
is not the case," Sanchez said from
Seville.
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