According to the second paragraph every actor they had played a stereotypical character. In other words they didn't single out women and make fun of them, it was part of a skit in which they made fun of a variety of people. I didn't see the event but it doesn't sound to me like they were being sexist.<p>Edit: after watching a few clips it seems like a really cheesy presentation, I didn't see any blatant sexism.<p>>> "The Brazilian woman was hot"<p>So? It really seems like the author has read far too much into this. I presume the Brazilian woman was demoing a feature of the phone. Should Samsung have discriminated against her based on her appearance and chosen someone less attractive? There are many problems women face in the tech world which need to be fixed but this is a poor attempt at turning a non-story into something bigger.
I wasn't going to upgrade to S4, but now that I read this rant, makes me want to go and get one.<p>Every week some columnist gets on a soapbox and drones about how they are offended. Just read a good blog post about it: <a href="http://falkenblog.blogspot.fr/2013/03/taking-offense-is-not-righteous.html" rel="nofollow">http://falkenblog.blogspot.fr/2013/03/taking-offense-is-not-...</a><p>"Curiously, a former definition of impoliteness has become a new focal point for all sorts of political and psychological offense. I remember Miss Manners noting that politeness has two, related, sides: not giving or taking unintentional offense. That's clearly old school. There seems to be a public bounty for perceiving slights, and lots of columnists are full-time commentators noting the latest injustice to their tribe. There's a website called MicroAggressions documenting slights felt by people who don't appreciate the guy who opened or failed to open the door for them. Interestingly, the more they talk about things, the more people get upset by people getting upset ad infinitum."
Honestly, a company that doesn't innovate, doesn't treat its talent right, and is run by suits who mass produce junk. Don't expect them to have any taste what so ever.
Interesting. I find the "I'm so offended" rants or the "What just happened?" rants rather amusing. It's easy to pick something to be offended by, but why is <i>that</i> the lede? Would talking about the phone be too dangerous? I don't know, it reminds me of drama for drama's sake.<p>I found their skits contrived, I wondered if this was how Koreans saw American Culture, I reminded myself that Psy got the YouTube page view record with Gangnam Style. But mostly I was trying to hear how they felt their design choices added value in the phone. Some I found compelling (like picture insets, translation) and others sort of ho-hum (like storybooking) but it didn't bother me that they all had midwestern accents or anything.
Well, at least they had some women on stage, unlike the PS4 launch event. <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/21/4013500/no-women-onstage-at-Sony-PS4-event-game-industry-feminism" rel="nofollow">http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/21/4013500/no-women-onstage-a...</a>