In recent years, it’s been suggested that some companies and organizations have intentionally caused upset through a statement or product, only to quickly recant, for the express purpose of getting two press “hits” out of one incident, in the process demonstrating their responsiveness to their customers or the population at large. As a one-time publicist, admittedly in the lower-stakes world of not-for-profit theatre, I’ve never been entirely convinced that this is a valid or even calculated strategy, or that it benefits the “offender” in any way. Of course, in the current presidential election we’ve watched one candidate make incendiary and offensive statements and receive great press attention and outrage for doing so. The result there is that it appeals to a certain portion of the voting population and, while the candidate may “walk back” or “recalibrate” his statements, actual apologies are exceptionally rare.

Watching this sort of “offend-apologize” dynamic when it comes to the arts can be instructive, whether it’s the Old Navy t-shirts that crossed out “artist” in favor of “astronaut” or “president,” or the AT&T campaign that urged people to watch football at the theatre. In the former case, the product was dropped; in the latter, AT&T expressed their love for the “thespian community,” saying they meant “no disrespect,” but the ads actually continued after that.

The just-finished Labor Day weekend saw two examples of affronts to the arts community. The better known example was the Wells Fargo “Teen Day” campaign, which used “ballerina” and “actor” as the abandoned pursuits of teens, in favor of current interests as “botanist” and “engineer.” While the Wells Fargo campaign did allow for something else to come along in the future, the fact that it didn’t offer anything but the arts as being in the past yielded an avalanche of outcry, and as awareness peaked on Saturday, Wells Fargo offered an apology late in the afternoon (east coast time).

Somewhat less noticed was the dismay over a casting notice from San Francisco mainstay Beach Blanket Babylon, shared online by monologist Mike Daisey, which stated that while “historically we have used performers whose facial features make them appear conventionally Caucasian,” “all ethnicities are welcome to audition.” They generously noted that “If you don’t [fit their description], your voice and stage presence could change our minds.” This is tantamount to saying, “white people preferred, but hey, people of color, if you go above and beyond, you may get a shot.”

To those who say that artists have the right to cast whom they choose, I will absolutely agree, but doing so in a way that is patently discriminatory is not OK. It’s all the more puzzling since the notice, so far as it was disseminated by Daisey, doesn’t actually describe any characters (performers double, triple, quadruple and more in BBB) – and the show has clearly hired artists of color in the past. But BBB pulled the casting notice within a day and issued their own apology.

The Wells Fargo and BBB apologies are worth looking at closely, because there’s a distinction between them. The bank’s mea culpa read, “Wells Fargo is deeply committed to the arts, and we offer our sincere apology for the initial ads promoting our September 17 Teen Financial Education Day. They were intended to celebrate all the aspirations of young people and fell short of that goal. We are making changes to the campaign’s creative that better reflect our company’s core value of embracing diversity and inclusion, and our support of the arts. Last year, Wells Fargo’s support of the arts, culture and education totaled $93 million.” Note the phrases “sincere apology” and “making changes to better reflect our company’s core value.”

Whether you think the ads should have ever gotten through in the first place, the statement is reasonably definitive. There’s no waffling. I know I won’t be alone in watching for new materials, although there are currently flyers with the old language in Wells Fargo outlets around Manhattan and presumably the country. Will they all be recycled today and new ones rushed to offices around the country? After all, Teen Day is less than two weeks away.

What you find on the Bleach Blanket Babylon site instead of their casting notice

The apology from BBB is rather less absolute. “We apologize to anyone who may have been offended,” it reads, “by the audition notice that was posted on our website. Beach Blanket Babylon was founded on the principle of poking fun but never offending anyone and we hold these principles true today. We have removed the audition notice from our site and promise to be more sensitive in the future.” This statement deploys the worst kind of “non-apology apology,” in that it is only sorry that some people were offended. It doesn’t actually take ownership for what it did, and places responsibility on those who were upset. Are they sorry for what they wrote, for the sentiments expressed, or only sorry that it bothered some people?

Even though BBB says they’ll try to be “more sensitive,” all they’re really saying is that they won’t be so boneheaded in the future. That this took place in a city that has been at the forefront of diversity is particularly startling. Just because BBB pulled the notice quickly over a holiday, and because it wasn’t quite the national cause celebre that Wells Fargo’s gaffe became, doesn’t mean they should be allowed to skate on this.

The “we’re sorry if you’re offended” construction is oft-floated, and I’ve had it thrown at me directly in my role at the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts. When a prominent critic wrote about Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan in the recent Broadway revival, they repeatedly used the word “cripple,” which is deeply offensive to people with disabilities, throughout their review, and not simply when referring to the title of the play. When I conveyed the fact that the term was an affront to many, and that even the character in the play objects to it, I was told that since the play used the word, so could the critic. “I’m sorry if any of your group was offended,” was the response, as if I was representing some fringe opinion, ignoring the millions of people with disabilities in the country who might see things my way.

The BBB notice has a corollary in a recent casting notice from City Center’s “Encores!,” for its upcoming “concert version” of The Golden Apple. While the construct of Encores! shows being concerts, as opposed to relatively simple, quickly rehearsed productions, is largely in the past, one might think that it still affords the opportunity to cast with less concern for appearances than the average full production. But when “Encores” posted a casting notice that repeatedly emphasized they were “not looking for heavy character actresses,” they were called out quickly thanks to actor Kirsten Wyatt (saying “Pretty sure #Encore is saying no fat checks. Fat men – feel free to audition”). Again, an apology, with the offending phrases removed, but it was impossible not to be aware of the bias at play.

The Wells Fargo, AT&T and Old Navy disrespect isn’t exactly new, and while some claim it may be inadvertent, it belies an attitude towards the arts that says they’re dispensible, or easily treated as the butt of jokes. It’s fair to acknowledge that ads are intended first and foremost to sell a product, not to be arts advocacy. But let’s remember that Misty Copeland’s Under Armour spot was a sensation precisely because it championed an artist not as some silly nerd, but a paragon of skill. It’s a shame the Madison Avenue folks can’t get the message about valuing the arts more generally. It’s still too much about the cool kids making the arts nerds the butt of their jokes.

As for these casting notices that seem blithely unaware or uninterested in the offense they give, that’s even more shameful. We hear a great deal about the arts being a big tent and embracing talent first and foremost, yet casting notices seem to periodically reveal fundamentally exclusionary sentiments. Perhaps its better to hear about them than not, so they can be called out for what they are, but if the result is simply to cause producers, casting directors and the like to employ better language to mask their intent, the field isn’t exactly advancing, is it? If we expect others to portray our field with respect, admiration and value, we need to do better too.

Update, September 7, 7 am: Late yesterday afternoon (west coast time), Beach Blanket Babylon issued a second apology regarding their casting notice, more detailed and definitive than the first. It appears below.

In recent years, it’s been suggested that some companies and organizations have intentionally caused upset through a statement or product, only to quickly recant, for the express purpose of getting two press “hits” out of one incident, in the process demonstrating their responsiveness to their customers or the population at large. As a one-time publicist, admittedly in the lower-stakes world of not-for-profit theatre, I’ve never been entirely convinced that this is a valid or even calculated strategy, or that it benefits the “offender” in any way. Of course, in the current presidential election we’ve watched one candidate make incendiary and offensive statements and receive great press attention and outrage for doing so. The result there is that it appeals to a certain portion of the voting population and, while the candidate may “walk back” or “recalibrate” his statements, actual apologies are exceptionally rare.

Watching this sort of “offend-apologize” dynamic when it comes to the arts can be instructive, whether it’s the Old Navy t-shirts that crossed out “artist” in favor of “astronaut” or “president,” or the AT&T campaign that urged people to watch football at the theatre. In the former case, the product was dropped; in the latter, AT&T expressed their love for the “thespian community,” saying they meant “no disrespect,” but the ads actually continued after that.

The just-finished Labor Day weekend saw two examples of affronts to the arts community. The better known example was the Wells Fargo “Teen Day” campaign, which used “ballerina” and “actor” as the abandoned pursuits of teens, in favor of current interests as “botanist” and “engineer.” While the Wells Fargo campaign did allow for something else to come along in the future, the fact that it didn’t offer anything but the arts as being in the past yielded an avalanche of outcry, and as awareness peaked on Saturday, Wells Fargo offered an apology late in the afternoon (east coast time).

Somewhat less noticed was the dismay over a casting notice from San Francisco mainstay Beach Blanket Babylon, shared online by monologist Mike Daisey, which stated that while “historically we have used performers whose facial features make them appear conventionally Caucasian,” “all ethnicities are welcome to audition.” They generously noted that “If you don’t [fit their description], your voice and stage presence could change our minds.” This is tantamount to saying, “white people preferred, but hey, people of color, if you go above and beyond, you may get a shot.”

To those who say that artists have the right to cast whom they choose, I will absolutely agree, but doing so in a way that is patently discriminatory is not OK. It’s all the more puzzling since the notice, so far as it was disseminated by Daisey, doesn’t actually describe any characters (performers double, triple, quadruple and more in BBB) – and the show has clearly hired artists of color in the past. But BBB pulled the casting notice within a day and issued their own apology.

The Wells Fargo and BBB apologies are worth looking at closely, because there’s a distinction between them. The bank’s mea culpa read, “Wells Fargo is deeply committed to the arts, and we offer our sincere apology for the initial ads promoting our September 17 Teen Financial Education Day. They were intended to celebrate all the aspirations of young people and fell short of that goal. We are making changes to the campaign’s creative that better reflect our company’s core value of embracing diversity and inclusion, and our support of the arts. Last year, Wells Fargo’s support of the arts, culture and education totaled $93 million.” Note the phrases “sincere apology” and “making changes to better reflect our company’s core value.”

Whether you think the ads should have ever gotten through in the first place, the statement is reasonably definitive. There’s no waffling. I know I won’t be alone in watching for new materials, although there are currently flyers with the old language in Wells Fargo outlets around Manhattan and presumably the country. Will they all be recycled today and new ones rushed to offices around the country? After all, Teen Day is less than two weeks away.

What you find on the Bleach Blanket Babylon site instead of their casting notice

The apology from BBB is rather less absolute. “We apologize to anyone who may have been offended,” it reads, “by the audition notice that was posted on our website. Beach Blanket Babylon was founded on the principle of poking fun but never offending anyone and we hold these principles true today. We have removed the audition notice from our site and promise to be more sensitive in the future.” This statement deploys the worst kind of “non-apology apology,” in that it is only sorry that some people were offended. It doesn’t actually take ownership for what it did, and places responsibility on those who were upset. Are they sorry for what they wrote, for the sentiments expressed, or only sorry that it bothered some people?

Even though BBB says they’ll try to be “more sensitive,” all they’re really saying is that they won’t be so boneheaded in the future. That this took place in a city that has been at the forefront of diversity is particularly startling. Just because BBB pulled the notice quickly over a holiday, and because it wasn’t quite the national cause celebre that Wells Fargo’s gaffe became, doesn’t mean they should be allowed to skate on this.

The “we’re sorry if you’re offended” construction is oft-floated, and I’ve had it thrown at me directly in my role at the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts. When a prominent critic wrote about Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan in the recent Broadway revival, they repeatedly used the word “cripple,” which is deeply offensive to people with disabilities, throughout their review, and not simply when referring to the title of the play. When I conveyed the fact that the term was an affront to many, and that even the character in the play objects to it, I was told that since the play used the word, so could the critic. “I’m sorry if any of your group was offended,” was the response, as if I was representing some fringe opinion, ignoring the millions of people with disabilities in the country who might see things my way.

The BBB notice has a corollary in a recent casting notice from City Center’s “Encores!,” for its upcoming “concert version” of The Golden Apple. While the construct of Encores! shows being concerts, as opposed to relatively simple, quickly rehearsed productions, is largely in the past, one might think that it still affords the opportunity to cast with less concern for appearances than the average full production. But when “Encores” posted a casting notice that repeatedly emphasized they were “not looking for heavy character actresses,” they were called out quickly thanks to actor Kirsten Wyatt (saying “Pretty sure #Encore is saying no fat checks. Fat men – feel free to audition”). Again, an apology, with the offending phrases removed, but it was impossible not to be aware of the bias at play.

The Wells Fargo, AT&T and Old Navy disrespect isn’t exactly new, and while some claim it may be inadvertent, it belies an attitude towards the arts that says they’re dispensible, or easily treated as the butt of jokes. It’s fair to acknowledge that ads are intended first and foremost to sell a product, not to be arts advocacy. But let’s remember that Misty Copeland’s Under Armour spot was a sensation precisely because it championed an artist not as some silly nerd, but a paragon of skill. It’s a shame the Madison Avenue folks can’t get the message about valuing the arts more generally. It’s still too much about the cool kids making the arts nerds the butt of their jokes.

As for these casting notices that seem blithely unaware or uninterested in the offense they give, that’s even more shameful. We hear a great deal about the arts being a big tent and embracing talent first and foremost, yet casting notices seem to periodically reveal fundamentally exclusionary sentiments. Perhaps its better to hear about them than not, so they can be called out for what they are, but if the result is simply to cause producers, casting directors and the like to employ better language to mask their intent, the field isn’t exactly advancing, is it? If we expect others to portray our field with respect, admiration and value, we need to do better too.

Update, September 7, 7 am: Late yesterday afternoon (west coast time), Beach Blanket Babylon issued a second apology regarding their casting notice, more detailed and definitive than the first. It appears below.

O-ho the Wells Fargo Wagon is-a comin’ down the street, and apparently it’s not interested in doing business with kids who aspire to the arts, their parents, their teachers, or arts organizations.

In promotional materials for their Teen Day on September 17 (because after all what kid doesn’t wasn’t to take time on a weekend to spend time at the bank), Wells Fargo has mounted a campaign that seems overtly dismissive of careers in the arts. While both they and I acknowledge that young people’s career interests may evolve over time, it seems strange that “yesterday’s” careers are ballerina and actor, while today’s careers are engineer and botanist. Clearly Wells Fargo is at least sufficiently self-aware not to have proposed banker as a present or future option.

On one flyer for Teen Day, Wells Fargo appear to compound their disdain by opining, “Your teen may not know what they want to be, but they know it will be something special.” Are careers in the arts, already left behind by the bank, not special? I know lots of actors, and I can say that the vast majority of them are pretty darn special. I suspect the same holds true for ballerinas.

By showing arts professions as professions which are to be put into the past, Wells Fargo has weirdly chosen to echo Old Navy’s misguided toddler onsie option from late 2015, where they changed the word “artist” in the phrase “young aspiring artist” to, giving buyers a choice, “astronaut” or “president.” That bit of salesmanship worked so well that Old Navy pulled the shirts within days and apologized for the offense.

So what to make of Wells Fargo leaving arts careers in the dust? It could mean that they’re not particularly interested in having a piece of the arts impact on the economy nationally, because surely even a portion of the annual “$135.2 billion of economic activity—$61.1 billion by the nation’s nonprofit arts and culture organizations in addition to $74.1 billion in event-related expenditures by their audiences,” according to Americans for the Arts, is small potatoes to the big shots at Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo is implying that it also is willing to leave on the table, once again citing Americans for the Arts, the “this economic activity supports 4.13 million full-time jobs and generates $86.68 billion in resident household income.”

Needless to say, I seriously doubt there are any banks that are uninterested in any legitimate segments of the market, since here in New York City there appear to be competing branches of major financial institutions on every street corner, hoping passersby will ultimately park their money there. So why make arts careers the example of what must be abandoned on the way to maturity? After all, before becoming an arts administrator, I once dreamed of being a “cowboy doctor,” giving that exotic pursuit up for the more mundane, steady world of entertainment.

While it is, admittedly, a holiday weekend, I wrote to multiple communications executives at Wells Fargo seeking comment on their campaign. As I post, I’ve not heard back from Oscar Suris, EVP of Corporate Communications; Arati Randolph at Corporate News, Enterprise Content, Executive Communications and New Media; Mark Folk, Head of Corporate Media Relations Corporate and Financial; Holly Rockwood, Marketing/Advertising (though an auto-reply message indicated she would not be checking e-mail); or New York state PR representative AnnMarie McDonald.

Should I hear from them, or if this should reach them through other means, I would like to point out that while careers in the arts take great commitment and often great sacrifice, young people aspiring to that work would in fact benefit from early financial education. Instead of shunting them aside for the engineers and botanists, especially in major urban markets, Wells Fargo might do well to market directly to them.

Even though Wells Fargo was immortalized in song in the Broadway musical The Music Man, an honor I can’t recall being bestowed on Citibank or TD Bank by any musical, it fails to recognize that its glib marketing is rapidly spreading on social media and alienating an entire market segment that actually cares about musicals, ballets, and the like. At the same time, it’s unlikely anyone is looking at their Teen Day promotions and saying, “Oh, good, Wells Fargo isn’t letting children entertain thoughts about arts careers. Kids, save time on September 17 for a field trip. That’s the bank we want”

While the bank’s Wild West heritage is now only a stagecoach image in their marketing, it’s one that over the past 24 hours, has lost its allure for countless friends, business associates and members of the arts community at large. Even were I to spot an actual vintage wagon comin’ down the street, I wouldn’t give it a second look. After all, I was a teen who dreamed of working in the arts and, four decades later, I still am. So after this dismissive, condescending campaign, I’m quite certain that the Wells Fargo wagon has absolutely nothing special just for me.

P.S. By the way, less than two weeks ago, Wells Fargo was fined $3.5 million dollars for misleading practices in connection with student loans. Should they be dispensing any advice about financial management to teens right now at all?

Update, September 3, 5 pm: Shortly after this post went live, I received an e-mail from Christina Kolbjornsen, SVP, Head of Marketing Communications in Wells Fargo’s Corporate Communications, responding to my prior inquiries and asking whether we should communicate via e-mail or voice. Because I was scheduled to conduct an interview on a separate subject, I sent Ms. Kolbjornsen a series of questions about the Teen Day campaign and the response to it, and received the following reply:

Wells Fargo is deeply committed to the arts, and we offer our sincere apology for the initial ads promoting our September 17 Teen Financial Education Day. They were intended to celebrate all the aspirations of young people and fell short of that goal. We are making changes to the campaign’s creative that better reflect our company’s core value of embracing diversity and inclusion, and our support of the arts. Last year, Wells Fargo’s support of the arts, culture and education totaled $93 million.