Ellen Page, Cisco, and the China Connection
Posted in News/Opinion by Lithobolos | Tags: China, Cisco, Ellen Page, News/Opinion
Watching commercials sometimes gets me annoyed and rarely gets me angry. Most of the time, I just try and zone out as to not be influenced into buying something I don’t need. This is not the case with the recent ads from Cisco featuring popular young actress Ellen Page. Not only do these commercials annoy with their cheesiness, fail to actually present a product I might want to buy, but they ironically make light of the human rights violations the company is perpetrating in their cooperation with the oppressive government of China.
The two main Cisco advertisements I have seen are: 1) where she goes to a classroom in her hometown and meets kids who are going on a virtual field trip to China and 2) where the small town’s city hall has a police control center with video screens connected to local surveillance cameras.
The sequence of my thoughts went from China, to video surveillance, to Cisco, and closed with the ditsy voice at the end chirping the catch phase: “the human network.” All of this together reminded me of the Tank Man documentary and human rights.
Years ago I watched an amazing documentary on PBS’s Frontline called The Tank Man. This documentary largely covers the Tienanmen Square Massacre, but it also deals with the so called “Great Fire Wall of China,” which touches on present day information and security efforts to crush free speech and dissent.
Cisco Systems was mention many times in the documentary and is also mentioned by Amnesty International as one of the corporations that are helping oppress the Chinese people.
From the Tank Man Documentary:
ANTONY THOMAS: It is that aspect, direct cooperation between Western corporations and the Chinese police, that is of greatest concern.
HARRY WU, China Information Center: China have a national program, so-called Golden Shield program. It means try to upgrade and modernize the police control system.
ANTONY THOMAS: Posing as a provider of surveillance technology and database management, exiled dissident Harry Wu contacted local police authorities across China. He says that time after time, he was told he was too late. They already had the latest technology from the American corporation Cisco.
HARRY WU: Cisco signed a contract with the provincial security department one after the other one. In their proposal, they say very clear that, “We help you make your work more effective.” Patrol car to patrol car connection, patrol car to police station connection, include the voice identification, image identification, fingerprints identification. They’re training Chinese police to control the country, control the people.
ANTONY THOMAS: Cisco declined an interview but issued a written statement: “Cisco sells identical products world-wide. It is the customer, not Cisco, who determines how the specific capabilities will be used.”
But Harry Wu wonders whether Cisco is violating the law.HARRY WU: American have the law since 1989, not allowed to sell any products to China about the detective or crime control.
ANTONY THOMAS: The law forbids the sale of any crime control or detection instruments or equipment to China. But Cisco says this means “equipment such as shotguns, police helmets and handcuffs. Networking products are not covered by this legislation.”
But under pressure from Harry Wu and Congress, the administration and the State Department are now reexamining the rules under which technology companies should operate in China.
Cisco has also said, “if the government of China wants to monitor the Internet, that’s their business. We are basically politically neutral” (Amnesty International USA).
All of this is horribly troubling and alone gets one incensed. The last thing we need is Cisco trying to get some cute Canadian girl acting innocent to show how great their technology is, all-the-while rubbing the fact they make money by selling said technology to China in to the faces of anyone who cares even a little bit about human rights there.
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Devon S. says:
It annoys me when actors/writers/artists do commercials, because in my head I can hear Bill Hicks saying, “Remember, if you do a commercial you’re off the artistic roll-call forever.”
daysuit says:
Let me play devil’s advocate here, just like I always would in real life. Devil’s advocate might be the wrong term, as I may actually believe a lot of the horrible slop that emanates from my very skull. So if I’m found to be offensive just pretend that the very forces of evil are channeled through my mind and out my mouth or in this case typing keyboard.
First of all, human rights aside, these commercials are brilliant. From a marketing standpoint very chic. Starting with the fact they star the lovely Ellen Page, an indie film turned mainstream starlet who’s lost more indie cred then even the most pretentious groups of hipsters pretended to never have. Personally, on a very vulgar note, I’d fuck her so hard that whatever room it happened in would smell of indie coolness, Pabst blue ribbon and just a hint of whatever the movie Juno smells like. So my opinion is thoroughly, immediately, and admittedly biased simply for the fact that I would bang the shit out of the spokeswoman. Ellen Page is hot, far more interesting to ogle than human rights violations.
+1 Cisco
0 Caring about China or its people.
Cisco makes really boring products like business phones and networking devices and um…phones that are networking devices. They actually make themselves seem interesting, like they actually make something. Truth of the matter is Cisco makes labels for electronics, fuck all knows the last time Cisco actually made something, Cisco at one point or another made things but in the past 15 years realized it was easier to let small foreign companies invent shit and to innovate using their money in lieu of engineering. Why do you think they have such good ties in China to begin with?
That being said, they make it seem as if they actually make interesting electronics. Do they make things that people like Ellen Page give a fuck about, maybe the Flip, if their iPhone 4′s don’t already do everything that can do plus on top of being capable of doing what about 90% of Cisco’s product line is capable of doing.
But commercials aren’t their to say, “We’re Cisco, boring as hell and an iPhone 4 does mostly everything our stuff can do combined into one small hand held device.”
No, they say, “Pretty girl likes Cisco, life without Cisco is shitty, Cisco makes things you want and we’re cool too. Hopefully you feel inferior to us. Anyone want to have a go at Ellen?”
+2 Cisco
0 Caring about China or its people
If anything Cisco is making the oppression of people more accurate, with teleconferencing walls of networked monitors and 24/7 internet communication available to oppressive authority forces, now especially innocent people are no longer caught up in the mix, only the regular kind of innocent enemy’s of the state get eradicated. If anything Cisco’s assistance to human rights violations are only more proof at the effectiveness of their products.
+3 Cisco
0 Caring about China or its people
Technology’s creators and peddlers are not responsible for how such tech is used. Chinese people will oppress their peeps with whatever they can get their hands on. As far as I can tell if I were an American paper clip company selling gobs of merchandise to Chinese agencies and my products were being used to stab out the eyes of Chinese domestic enemies and I knew about it, I’d be more worried about them finding more efficient ways of stabbing out eyes lest I lose money. Living a good life in America is more important than giving a Goddamn about the rest of the world. It’s how we live as a nation and how we remain free and an insurmountable world power. We make money, some foreign people get what they want and some other foreign people get dicked over big time. You tell me a longer lasting staple of how America and it’s companies have functioned.
+4 Cisco
-0 Caring about China or its people
Lithobolos says:
If you saw the movie “The Devil’s Advocate” you would realize that attractive women end up being demons, your demon sister or your poor rape victim wife who ends up killing herself. Ellen Page I would guess is some kind of victim or demon. She is supporting a company that is breaking the law and doesn’t know about it. The law as far as I know outlaws ““the export to the People’s Republic of China of any crime control or detection instruments or equipment.”
Cisco knows that its products are being used to in police communication, and to control anti-government speech, which in China is a crime. Thus it is being used for crime control.
Also to say that other corporations are messed up too doesn’t excuse Cisco’s actions. Also I disagree that corporate greed and disregard for everyday people and the commons is good for America when it only benefits the world’s rich.
PoorKmart says:
Yet that law is obviously dated, as America as a nation has nothing stopping the huge amount of trade with China, giving them some of that cash to fund the police state. It has also been in the news fairly often recently that the federal government is trying to normalize relations on multiple levels, including military, which doesn’t make a coherent strategy on dealing with China. Do as I say, not as I do isn’t very effective governing(but it is common).
As a side not, how do you rate the importance of fighting China’s police state at every turn to dealing with North Korea? China is essentially propping them up, and a hostile US certainly doesn’t help change that. So what do we focus on more, the brutal police state of NK(one of the rare examples 1984 can justifiably be mentioned for), or the comparatively lesser police state of China?
Last point: Daysuit is right. Ellen Page is at the least easy on the eyes, and I for one, would hit it.