The marketing director of KXL’s parent company says the placement of an offensive billboard in Chinatown was an unfortunate coincidence, reports Oregon Live.
The billboard proclaimed “We Love You a Long Time,” a play on a line read by an Asian prostitute in the Vietnam War Movie, Full Metal Jacket, and yet another way Hollywood has portrayed Asian and Asian American women as serving the sexual pleasure of men.
“I guess I’m not from the generation that’s seen ‘Full Metal Jacket,’” said Randi P’Pool, director of marketing for Alpha Broadcasting, KXL’s parent company. “This was a phrase from a rap song to us, a phrase in popular slang that was in ‘The 40-Year-Old-Virgin,’ and a Black Eyed Peas song. That’s where it was coming from for us.”
He called the placement of the billboard “dumb luck” and “not intentional.”
KXL has since replaced the billboard following an uproar that went viral.
You can read about the campaign mounted by Portland’s Chinese American community in Oregon Live.
