NBA
Commentary by Jesse Fornash, May 2004
During a recent NBA Basketball game in the first round of the
playoffs, an NBA Commercial was shown that was yet another
knock against short people. I found it to be very offensive. This commercial
featured NBA players from the 16 NBA teams that qualified for the 2004 NBA
Playoffs standing next to, and hugging, the NBA Championship trophy. The
narrator referred to the trophy as a woman. One of the
players shown in the commercial was the shortest NBA player: 5' 5" Earl
Boykins of the Denver Nuggets. It also featured players that were short or
of average height by NBA standards such as Stephon Marbury, Jason Kidd, and
Dwyane Wade. Some of the tallest players were represented as well,including Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, and Yao Ming. The part of the
commercial that I found offensive was when the narrator said something along
the lines of:
What will she choose? Will it be a tall man, or a very tall man?
I found this offensive because it made it seem like the only choices the
trophy had were guys that had to be tall. If the shortest player was
featured in this commercial, why couldn't a short man have been mentioned as
one of the choices as well? As we all know very well, most woman prefer tall
men to short men, and this commercial only compounds that belief. It could make even more woman who just might have seen this commercial
believe that tall men are the only way to go, and that a short man should
not be an option. Even though this commercial is not on the air anymore, I
believe that any short man who may have seen it probably would have considered
it to be offensive as well, because the point of it only seems to make short
people feel like they should be left out, and that only tall and very men
are worthy of consideration. Just because mostly tall men play in the NBA,
doesn't give whoever made this commercial any right to knock short men.
I just have one thing to say to whoever produced this commercial. "Shame on
you!"