Sometimes, watching a goofball, offensive political ad, you can tell yourself it's from a faraway place, where people are less socially conscious than people are in whatever fine city you live in.
No such luck this time, if you're one of our many Los Angeles readers. An independent, online attack ad in a local congressional race finds City Councilwoman Janice Hahn gyrating on a stripper pole as stereotypical gangbangers fire machine guns and demand, "Give Us Your Cash, Bitch."
We'd identify the filmmaker responsible — he pointedly notes at the end of the ad that it isn't authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee — but this is such obvious acting out for attention that I think it's more humane to let him work out his race and gender issues in private.
Story continues after the video:
I'm not calling the ad racist or sexist, exactly — when there are this many stereotypes thrown around you have to assume there's some attempt at satire, or meta-post-racism, or some similarly exhausting nonsense.
But the ad (is it even an ad if it only runs on YouTube and a few mocking blogs?) is so pointedly dumb that it's impossible to tell what point the guy is trying to make. It can't really be that Janice Hahn wants to steal your tax money and give it to gangsters to rape and kill you, can it? Or that Charles Manson and Bugsy Siegel are somehow involved? (We refuse to take anything this stupid at its word.)
Also, one factual quibble: I grew up in Hahn's district, and don't remember any gun-filled, half-assed "2 Live Crew" videos breaking out the whole time I lived there. I feel kind of cheated.
