For the past week I have been observing advertisements that I see daily. I observed these advertisements in three different ways or mediums, these beings a magazine, two newspaper inserts, and television. Below are brief descriptions of some of the advertisements and specifications on the race and gender present in all of them.
Liz Claiborne Ad in Glamour (April '09) pg 39
There are 6 individuals in the ad and five were women. One is black and one woman is clearly older. The older woman is positioned in the front of the ad. The black woman is in the background. She is not as easily seen as the rest of the models in the picture.
Here is an example of an ad similar to the one that I viewed in the magazine.
Lacoste Ad in Glamour
There are four people in the ad. 2 men and 2 women. The only there are two people whose faces are not all the way in the ad. One of them happens to be an Asian female. Her face is cut in half by the edge of the advertisement. It makes me wonder why did they do this. They could have easily fit her into the ad. I know it could have been done when editing this picture.
Community Ad's for the week
Ad for Dots:
Dot's is a new fashion store opening in the Norman area. There are two different girls featured in the add. There are two females one seems to be South American and the other seems to be black or of mixed race. The women who seems to be black or of mixed race is light skinned with a less ethnic grade of hair.
Swing Set at Walmart
There are five children playing on the swing set. There are three girls and two boys. Three out of the five children seem to be non white.
Television ads
Cars (Disney XD)
Commercials During the movie that were not Cartoon commercials:
Fashion n' Studio: Three white girls
Hot wheels: Black and white boy
Disney Vacations: 3 different minorities and whites in the commercial
Catch Me if You Can (TNT)
Centrum Silver: White couple
Verizon: White customer and an Asian Salesman
DirecTV: Black and White men in a bank robbery
Maybelline: White Woman
Colgate: Brooke Shields
Sports and Movie Ads:
Coming to America ( Bravo)
Cheerios: White Man, white woman w/ Child, Black Woman with Husband
Turbo Tax: Same as above
Slumdog Millionaire Movie
Hoover Vacuum: White woman and Man
Joe's Crab Shack: White group of friends
This is what I observed from the magazine ads. When there we ad's with African American women as the only model they fit a certain type. They were light skinned and and had more of white features( Beyonce, Halle, random black model with green eyes).
For advertisements on television it is only natural to notice that they reflect the type of channel that is being viewed and the actual individual show. Most shows that are most likely to be viewed by adults were the ones that showed non whites in the typical ways described by the Coltrane reading. That is being in the background and subservient to white authority figures. Most of these advertisements illustrated these roles and did not deviate extremely from commercial to commercial, the trend was similar
I noticed that when I viewed a cartoon(Cars), which is geared towards children the ads had more minorities in roles. In a typical commercial break, there would only be one commercial with n all white cast. This makes me think that the generation that watches these are going to be more receptive to diversity on advertisements that were before hem. This is a good thing because they are starting at a younger age.
As far as gender goes, most of the commercials had females in them. They were in typical roles though. For example in the Joe's Crab Shack commercial their are several people sitting at a table and one of them is a female. Her food comes out and it has a cover over it. The guy asks her to take her top off, referring to the top of her food but it does have a sexual undertone because the female misunderstands him at first.
In my opinion, the advertisements were disappointing. I wanted to believe that stereotypical roles no longer prevalent in todays advertisements but I couldn't. It is very evident once I began to observe the trends in the advertisements.
3 comments:
I also noticed that commercials targeted towards children had more minorities/diversity in them compared to commercials that targeted adults. It seems like the commercials for adults had certain races, genders, or stereotypes that targeted the specific show that was on.
Advertisements in general are disappointing. I agree that stereotypical roles still apply. It doesn't seem like the trends in advertisements are going to change anytime soon. I only wish they would.
I absolutely agree. I found that in most of the magazine ads African Americans were shown in the backgrounds, blended into a crowd or were all together less prominent in the advertisement. Also, in my tracking I found the same exact situation with an Asian woman, she was one of three women portrayed, however she was on the end and only half or so of her face was actually shown...I did not understand this either...? was it for a mysterious look or were they trying to casually trying to make her less noticeable..? I found gender and racial roles in commercials to be one of the most shocking findings. The fact that over and over again so many stereotypes were being reinforced, ideas of making minorities or women sexualized, belittled, or inferior is what really disappointed m
I saw the Joe's Crab Shack commercial the other day for the first time, and hoped somebody] would write about it. So thanks Ashriel! That commercial is exactly what this class is discussing (also, can the advertisers get away with such blatantly sexual references on TV? Sad.).
I know you spoke in class about the prevalence of minorities in children’s commercials. I think the younger generation has no excuse to be racially] insensitive. However, when we were younger, there was an increase in minority children's programming (i.e. Gullah Gullah Island, Taina, etc.), but we still have people in our class who fail to understand, or want to fully understand what it means to be a racial minority.
When you mentioned such a trend in commercials, including someone mentioning black and white girls playing with Barbies, some people did not seem to understand the significance of people never playing with the black doll, especially when the viewer is a child of color.
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