The Perpetuation of Subtle Prejudice: Race and Gender Imagery in 1990s Television Advertising (4/3/09 Blog Assignment)

Advertisements Reviewed:
1. Rolling Stone Magazine
2. Glamour Magazine
3. Allure Magazine
4. Elle Magazine
5. Coca-Cola Original, I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing Commercial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mOEU87SBTU)
6. Madonna & Missy Elliot Gap Commercial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBoYEswlBOw)
7. Classic Budweiser Commercial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73PEHI5R8Cg)
8. Coca-Cola classic ad: Mean Joe Green (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xffOCZYX6F8)
9. Tootsie Roll 70's Commercial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qayjR8Qbyfc&feature=PlayList&p=482D1C03044C429B&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=101
10. Where's the Beef (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug75diEyiA)

In-Depth Articles
1. Rolling Stone Magazine
The magazine itself has a lot of ads but majority of them do not have people in them or they have people but they are in different/non-normal colors like they are made to be pink or green. Of the ads in the magazine there are only six with people but I still feel like with that small number there is still a very typical representation. By typical I mean white people, usually woman, woman who are slim or in shape, beautiful, and usually scantily dressed! Two ads in particular stuck out to me, one that is typical and one that somewhat defies the odds. The first ad is an ad for Professional Sebastian hair care. The headline reads, "Flaunt more than surface shine," clearly indicating that if you don't use Sebastian hair products you are clearly just a face but if you use Sebastian you don't just have your face but your wonderful hair as well because I mean that's all men look for in women, right (sarcasm)? There are also three pictures in the ad, shocking, all the ads are of white women with smooth hair (some women do have rolled or curled hair but it looks frizz free and clearly perfect). One photo is just of a woman's head but she isn't facing the camera straight on, the next is of her body because she is kneeling down revealing a lot of her leg, and thirdly it is a full body shot but she is wearing a short dress with chunky heals giving a very cold hard look to the camera. This ad clearly has no diversity but the second actually has a lot more diversity than I honestly expected to see. The ad is for Calvin Klein's fragrance, ck one. The ad is done in black in white with a line of people walking across the page with a huge bottle right in the middle. All the people though are wearing jeans, jean shorts, white or grey t-shirts or tank tops while some men are shirtless. I feel the ad covers the spectrum of people somewhat well with white and black, men and women, adults and children even with some Asian models. No one model in particular is ahead of the other and everyone just seems to be walking across the beach minding their own business.

2. Glamour Magazine
I began counting the ads in this magazine but then I got 3/4ths of the way through and lost count so I can't exactly say how many ads are in the magazine but majority of them fall into the typical ad category (as described above). However I would like to talk about a couple of ads that really stuck out to me as I flipped through. The first is an ad for Diet Coke. The ad features 19 women, all wearing red dresses in a kind of triangle pose with the point of the triangle or focus of the picture being Heidi Klum while all the other women are posed behind her and they of course are just highered models with Heidi being the only recognizable face. Across the ad reads, "Good taste is about making a statement." Of the 19 women there are 12 brunettes, 4 blondes, and 3 redheads. Of the 19 women their are 16 white women and 3 black women HOWEVER 2 of the black women are in the back row where you can only see a corner of their smile and one eye. The other black woman did make it to the front row in the 4th from the end position but you can see her whole face which is a plus compared to the women in the back row. Majority of the women aren't young but I would say 25-40 with only 1 woman who looks over 40 however 9 of the women only get judged on what tidbit of their face makes the picture because it isn't covered by the woman in front of them. This ad really made me sick because I remember seeing this ad before, in a time that I was not enrolled in this class and wasn't made aware to really pay attention to advertisements, stereotypes and biases. It really says something about the fact that the ad jumped out to me when I usually I don't pay attention to ads.

3. Allure Magazine
Allure is a lot like Glamour in the genre of ads but Allure does have about half as many. The first ad that struck me was DKNY JEANS ad. I struck me because it was not the typical ad. The ad has no writing other than DKNY JEANS across the bottom of the second picture. The ad takes up two side by side pages and although they are separate pictures the each feature one person, facing the camera straight on with a full picture of the body. The first picture is of an Asian girl with long somewhat wavy hair wearing a zip-up jacket, jean, shorts, and socks with heals, not revealing or scantily in anyway. The second picture is of a black mail wearing a headband, sunglasses, a blue pearl-snap short sleeve collared shirt, dark-washed jeans, and red lace up tennis shoes. Both pictures are very respectable and I think very well for the fashion industry and advertising/marketing industry. The ad really looks like it is about the clothes and not the person/model selling or making the clothes look good.
The second ad isn't really an ad but more an article but it really jumped out at me. It is a story about Barbie. It is entitled, "A Barbie World: No wonder Barbie looks so great at 50 - the ultimate blonde bombshell has 25 hair and makeup pros on call." Barbie is the quint-essential white girl American stereotype. Across from the first page of the article are 25 headshot-sized pictures of Barbie through the years. Of those 25 there is only one black Barbie. Also of that 25, 19 have blonde hair, 2 brunettes, 2 redheads, and 1 rocker-style Barbie with white and black hair. The black Barbie though is from 1980 with a caption that reads, "The first lack Barbie had an Afro." Pretty sure you can't get anymore stereotypical than that and the fact that she is the only black Barbie pictured on the page and the first black Barbie of all time. It is also startling that the first black Barbie was not created until 1980!

4. Elle Magazine
I counted the ads in this magazine and counted 132 ads that feature white people and white people only. There were two ads featuring Spanish or Latino women only but they were both ads featuring Penelope Cruz. I counted seven ads featuring black women or people and one ad that feature Kimora Lee Simons, now just Kimora Lee who is part African-American and part Asian. This does not include the fashion spreads with majority featuring a single white female model. Most all-major fashion ads were almost one in the same featuring a freakishly skinny female white model with long soft and flowing hair and this look of "ugh." I really can't describe it except they look weak with no emotion in their eyes except for maybe a "rescue me?" Some major ads that break the norm of just a typical white girl caught my attention but not in a good way. The first is LG commercial which features a black female as a tailor fitting a skirt on a white female. Only the white female's legs are pictured because she is standing on a stool while the black female is on her knees on the ground almost eye to eye with the bottom of the skirt which hits just above the knee. The second is a Paul Mitchell hair care ad featuring Paul Mitchell himself, his wife, and son amongst seven African-American children of both genders. The in caption reads: "Family knows no borders. John Paul Mitchell Systems proudly supports Food4Africa and other local and international organizations in their commitment to feed, shelter and educate needy children every day. The real Paul Mitchell...guaranteed only in salons and Paul Mitchell Schools." I think charity and volunteer work is fantastic but the fact that a super wealthy white male is pictured with his nothing short of a blonde bombshell trophy wife amongst African-American children in Africa is a little ridiculous. But the children are not pictured in sadness or dealing with the stress and pain of hunger and poverty, No, they are happy and joyful, which of course they would be because Paul Mitchell and his family are here to save the day. The third is an ad for Johnson & Johnson. This ad features only an African American woman placed against a purple backdrop and she is completely nude but you can only see part of her leg, arm and head. The text reads, "Give us 10 days. Get 10 times more moisture." The ad, I feel, only features a black woman in a ad about soft skin clearly insinuating that black skin is more dry and that it is only good looking or appealing when soft and smooth so let Johnson & Johnson make YOU more appealing!

5. Madonna & Missy Eliot - Gap Commercial
The commercial opens with VH1 naming certain types of groove the corny groove which features a quick picture of clearly a African-American man with corn rows; The sweaty groove which features almost a fully picture, cut off from the knees down of a African-American woman wearing a bikini top and shorts clearly sweaty from dancing; The sexy groove, which features a picture of just a African-American woman's chest aka her cleavage and finally the boss groove, which is the famous Bruce Springsteen picture where his back is turned to the audience, looking over his shoulder, wearing tight blue jeans with a white t-shirt and a red-baseball cap is in his back pocket however the picture is just of his butt in the jeans with the cap. And that is all just in the first 15 seconds of the 1 minute and 45 second commercial! The commercial then goes on to premiere a duet featuring Madonna and Missy Elliot. Madonna, shockingly, gets more airtime and is featured wearing tight jeans and tight white tank with heals whereas Missy Elliot is debuted second wearing baggy jeans, an oversized t-shirt and a baggy jean-jacket with tennis shoes. I am pretty sure however that this commercial was made before Missy Elliot lost a bunch of weight and she may not have been comfortable wearing something else or she just picked her own outfit but I would love to see the clothing racks for both women picked before the shoot. The commercial features a lot of dances of mixed races but towards the end, one dancer, a black male gets on the floor and Madonna places her foot on him as if she has conquered a huge mountain climb...The women then share dance moves at the end but the commercial turns off however the recording is still going. Missy ends the video with doing the splits while Madonna does a yoga pose. Everyone is clapping and I can't help but notice that Madonna to get more attention yells, "wait I can do that, I can do that." Explaining that she can do just as Missy Elliot is doing too, maybe I'm reading too far into it but if not then she is clearly displaying that Missy Elliot is no better or more advanced than she.

This assignment did not make me notice the unfair representation of not just minorities but African-Americans especially anymore than I have since I began the class. However it was just another reminder of everything we have learned and that the media and especially the advertising market is extremely biased and not just to African-Americans but to women in general and all other minorities!