This indie production from 1969 is intriguing at the outset as a biting satire of a New York ad agency, but unfortunately when it shifts to satirizing the black power movement, it gets mired in a variety of racist tropes. I admired its madcap anarchy and its attempts to flout all things traditional, but the comedy was uneven to say the least, and I thought it squandered an opportunity to do something more powerful with its interesting premise, disintegrating into a mélange of juvenile bits.
It's clear at the beginning that the ad agency has no morals, either in what they're peddling or in how they begin voting for a new chairman while the old one still lies dead from a heart attack over the boardroom table. When they elect the only African-American man in the room, it's even more interesting, as the only thing we know about him before that happens is that he believes they shouldn't be advertising toy guns. (The others at that point naturally shut him down, saying that appealing to youngsters' aggression keeps them from "becoming faggots," and we see how wickedly pointed director/writer Robert Downey Sr. Can be).
When Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson) gets the job, he promises no changes but then hires a team of militant brothers, one of whom brandishes a pistol and tells a white employee he has to take the freight elevator, and another of whom suggests they have watermelon breaks. One of their clients is an Asian-American man who sets off firecrackers in the lobby and says "I'm a happy chink" after a bizarre idea to market is incinerating mousetrap is pitched. We see one of the Islamic employees praying in a ridiculous, exaggerated manner, and women ogled and their "jugs" commented on. A blond maid is abused by her black employer, and a foulmouthed white boy wants to be adopted by Swope, as long as he "doesn't do it out of guilt."
I don't think there was malicious intention here, it's all meant to be unfiltered satire of anything and everything and trying (I think) to show that power will corrupt whoever has it, regardless of race, but for portions of this it played as conservative white America's biggest fears about a world run by people of color. Both the existing establishment and the black militants are satirized, and indeed we hear one of them saying that their ads are just as tasteless as those which came before them, but I have to say, the film was much more enjoyable when it was satirizing the existing establishment.
There are some funny bits, like the white guy who goes to his black boss and points out he's making less than his peers, in a nice inversion. The boss tells him that if he gives him a raise, everyone else will ask for one too, and then he'll be right back where he started. The guy says he didn't think of that, and the boss tells him that's why he's where he is in the company, because he doesn't think, and he meekly slinks off. I also liked some of the raunchy commercials the team dreams up, they're wildly entertaining and cut through the usual BS that Madison Avenue produces.
Unfortunately, the film comes with just so much other baggage that it was weighed down considerably, try as I might to avoid being overly PC while watching it over a half a century later. Definitely a product of its time and by an original filmmaker, but I ended up not enjoying it.
It's clear at the beginning that the ad agency has no morals, either in what they're peddling or in how they begin voting for a new chairman while the old one still lies dead from a heart attack over the boardroom table. When they elect the only African-American man in the room, it's even more interesting, as the only thing we know about him before that happens is that he believes they shouldn't be advertising toy guns. (The others at that point naturally shut him down, saying that appealing to youngsters' aggression keeps them from "becoming faggots," and we see how wickedly pointed director/writer Robert Downey Sr. Can be).
When Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson) gets the job, he promises no changes but then hires a team of militant brothers, one of whom brandishes a pistol and tells a white employee he has to take the freight elevator, and another of whom suggests they have watermelon breaks. One of their clients is an Asian-American man who sets off firecrackers in the lobby and says "I'm a happy chink" after a bizarre idea to market is incinerating mousetrap is pitched. We see one of the Islamic employees praying in a ridiculous, exaggerated manner, and women ogled and their "jugs" commented on. A blond maid is abused by her black employer, and a foulmouthed white boy wants to be adopted by Swope, as long as he "doesn't do it out of guilt."
I don't think there was malicious intention here, it's all meant to be unfiltered satire of anything and everything and trying (I think) to show that power will corrupt whoever has it, regardless of race, but for portions of this it played as conservative white America's biggest fears about a world run by people of color. Both the existing establishment and the black militants are satirized, and indeed we hear one of them saying that their ads are just as tasteless as those which came before them, but I have to say, the film was much more enjoyable when it was satirizing the existing establishment.
There are some funny bits, like the white guy who goes to his black boss and points out he's making less than his peers, in a nice inversion. The boss tells him that if he gives him a raise, everyone else will ask for one too, and then he'll be right back where he started. The guy says he didn't think of that, and the boss tells him that's why he's where he is in the company, because he doesn't think, and he meekly slinks off. I also liked some of the raunchy commercials the team dreams up, they're wildly entertaining and cut through the usual BS that Madison Avenue produces.
Unfortunately, the film comes with just so much other baggage that it was weighed down considerably, try as I might to avoid being overly PC while watching it over a half a century later. Definitely a product of its time and by an original filmmaker, but I ended up not enjoying it.