TORONTO – Those attending Thursday’s Samsung Galaxy S4 launch event were surely anticipating the release of a new smartphone rich with high-tech capabilities – what they were not prepared for was the Broadway show that followed.
While the Galaxy S4 impressed some with its new features, including a 4.99-inch screen and impressive camera, the presentation stole the show – due in part to its cheesy dance routines and blatant sexism, according to some.
The event started off with a fairly traditional keynote as president and head of IT and mobile communication at Samsung JK Shin introduced the phone, but things started to get unusual about 17 minutes into the presentation.
Different features of the phone are introduced by various characters, including a tap-dancing child, a lost backpacker and a group of bridesmaids drinking with the bride-to-be.
Each scene is acted out on a moving stage set-up that rivals a real Broadway set design.
But those attending the event were not impressed.
“Was this presentation tone-deaf? Absolutely. Was it sexist? No more than any other shoddily-produced Broadway show but sure. Was it a show that proved that Samsung thinks of itself as being on top of the world? Absolutely,” wrote TechCrunch’s John Biggs in an article titled, “The Weird, the Bad, and and the Samsung.”
The majority of the criticism against Samsung lies in the bachelorette segment of the show – called “shockingly sexist” by CNet writer Molly Wood.
The group of bridesmaids was used to demonstrate all of the “womanly” things the phone can do, using examples like cooking apps, wedding planning apps and weigh loss apps.
“In the middle of a red-hot conversation about women in technology, the resurgence of the equal-pay discussion, and Sheryl Sandberg reigniting the very concept of feminism in America, Samsung delivered a Galaxy S4 launch event that served up more ’50s-era stereotypes about women than I can count, and packaged them all as campy Broadway caricatures of the most, yes, offensive variety,” wrote Wood in the CNet article.
Photos of Samsung’s Galaxy S4 launch event.
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