![]() ![]() ![]() Mutombo is the founder of the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation which builds schools and hospitals in Kinshasa, Congo. However, outside of basketball, he is mostly renowned for his not for profit ventures. As an entrepreneur, he is the founder of the cable network ‘Africa Channel’ and has embarked on other business ventures. His original goal was to become a medical doctor! Albeit playing time-consuming college basketball, he eventually graduated with two degrees in Linguistics and Diplomacy from Georgetown. ![]() Mutumbo was the recipient of an academic scholarship to the highly ranked Georgetown University as a pre-med student. There is an above average brain lurking behind this Neanderthal representation of him. This portrayal of Mutumbo is really unfortunate because Mutumbo is a very accomplished man. He evokes images reminiscent of the arch stereotype of the African male who may not be intelligent, may not be articulate, but ‘can sure play ball!’. Simply speaking, the commercial makes Mutumbo look like and oafish cave man. One almost expects him to yell, “yabba dabba doo!” like Fred Flinstone. However, for some of us the commercial shows an African basketball athlete, running around town hitting objects out of people’s hands, who is also seemingly inarticulate. During this time, he is making mono syllabic statements like “no, no, no”, “not in my house!” and “ha ha ha.”This is supposed to be a commentary on his defense skills as a basketball player where he blocked numerous shots.įor many basketball fans, it brings about nostalgia from the days that he was playing in the basketball leagues. In the commercial, he blocks a crumpled ball of paper from being thrown in to a trash can, a boy from throwing a box of cereal in to a shopping cart and a woman from throwing laundry in to a washing machine and in other similar situations. The commercial, “Happier than Dikembe Mutombo Blocking a Shot” depicts Mutombo running around blocking ordinary people from making ‘shots’ in everyday situations. Dikembe Mutombo (Photo credit: Doha Stadium Plus)Ĭongolese basketball player Dikembe Mutombo has been receiving largely positive responses with regards to his new advertisement for GEICO, an auto insurance company in the United States of America. ![]()
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