The Guardian

London, May 18:

The sportswear firm Reebok has been criticised by the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for glorifying gun violence in a television advert featuring the hip hop star 50 Cent.

The advert, which attracted 57 complaints from viewers, showed 50 Cent sitting in a darkened room, the sequence overlaid with audio clips of music, sirens and voices saying that the rapper had been ‘gunned down’ and ‘taken to Jamaica hospital’.

A close-up of dripping water appeared to flash red before the voice said ‘shot nine times’ and 50 Cent slowly counted from one to nine. Another voiced then asked, “Who do you plan to massacre next?”

In the advert the star, who has topped the album charts on both sides of the Atlantic since appearing on the scene as a protege of Eminem in 2003, then laughs briefly and stares at the camera. The rapper, who signed a deal with Reebok last year to appear in advertising campaigns and design trainers for the firm, has frequently played on his humble upbringing in interviews and, in particular, on a notorious drive-by incident when he was shot nine times.

While the UK Broadcasting Advertising Clearance Centre, which vets television commercials before they are screened, ruled that the advert could be screened after 9pm, the ASA said it should not have been shown at all. The ASA said that the portrayal of 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, had the “potential to encourage or condone violence, particularly among vulnerable or younger viewers”, and that the rapper’s attitude was likely to suggest this type of lifestyle was something to aspire to.

“As 50 Cent is a well-known gangster style rapper whose music is closely associated with crime and violence, we believed the advertisements endorsed his type of lifestyle and disregarded the unsavoury and perilous aspects of it by implying it was possible to survive being shot nine times,” added the ASA. The 9pm restriction was not sufficient as older children could see the ads.

After the complaints, Reebok withdrew the expensive 50 Cent advert from British TV screens. A spokesman said that “a small number of the general public misinterpreted it and found it offensive”. Reebok had argued that the adverts did not glorify violence but rather that “you can achieve by believing in yourself” and that they were part of a wider global campaign tagged ‘I am what I am’. The question about a massacre referred not to violence but to 50 Cent’s new album of that name, it argued.