When SuperFrog appeared in television ads with notorious rapper Snoop Dogg during the Bowl Championship Series, TCU got the “Ultimate Bling” indeed: free publicity that reached into hundreds of millions of homes.
But it paid a hefty price for the bling-bling. It was not paid with the Benjamins, but rather the further erosion of the Christian values on which this university was founded.
Snoop Dogg’s troubles with the law — including a murder charge for which he was ultimately acquitted — and admitted drug use are well documented. Those, perhaps, can be written off as past mistakes that can be forgiven. Far more damning is the “pimp” lifestyle the Los Angeles rapper endorses.
Rappers are “teaching people how to hustle and how to look good,” Snoop Dogg told The Associated Press. “I’d rather be a pimp than a gang-banger because I grew up being a gang-banger and I tell you, you live longer being a pimp.”
Snoop Dogg may not be an actual pimp, someone who finds customers for prostitutes, but he is a pornographer. He hosted the X-rated video “Girls Gone Wild Doggy Style” that features nudity and sexual activity. He says he is working to see more minorities featured — we would say exploited — in the videos.
“If you notice, there hasn’t been no girls of (ethnicity) at all on none of those tapes,” he told The Associated Press. “No black girls, no Spanish girls, all white girls, and that ain’t cool, because white girls ain’t the only hos that get wild.”
Even in the preliminary Nokia ad, Snoop Dogg is surrounded by women, presumably the “hos” he spoke of, when he receives SuperFrog’s picture on his cell phone. NCAA President Myles Brand reportedly called the ads “inappropriate for a college game.”
Some may say the commercials were lighthearted and in good fun. They were good publicity. And they were funny. But that misses the point. Agreeing to appear in ads with a noted smut peddler implies acceptance of that lifestyle.
Those are not the values that Texas Christian University represents. Sooner or later, TCU needs to decide whether it wants to be a Christian university or a secular one.
Right now, it’s just selling out.
