Constructing Race: Minority Representation in Advertising
American culture is obsessed with blackness, but primarily in a commodified form that can be possessed, owned, controlled, and shaped.
- Bell Hooks (cultural criticism and transformation)
For much of the early 20th century, visual representations of minorities in popular culture and advertising were appropriated to serve the superstructure of white supremacy. Representations of African Americans were either servile depictions of washerwomen, janitors, or exaggerated images reminiscent of stereotypes of minstrelsy that were meant to be humorous and entertaining and, thus, a viable strategy for selling to the white population (Halter, 29). Often such caricatures were used in advertising designs for products associated with blackness- such as black shoe polish, coal stoves, certain soaps, or black thread (Halter, 29). Notable characters, such as Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben, were marketed as tropes reminiscent of slavery, a marketing ploy used to evoke the nostalgia of the antebellum south. Occasional Chinese figures were also depicted in these ads, but like the portrayals of African Americans, their images were distorted and depicted in in servile roles, usually associated with laundry products (Halter, 30).
Whether Chinese, African American, or European immigrants (whose whiteness had not yet been recognized), these populations were never shown purchasing or using the products themselves. There were noteworthy exceptions that provided an example of marketing to minority groups. The white corporate strategy of gaining control of the black consumer market occurred first with the Pepsi-Cola Company (Conrad, 235). Between 1960 and 1964, after spending several million dollars solely in black-oriented advertising [targeting the black audience with images of black families enjoying the soft drink] Pepsi-Cola’s annual profits rose from $157.6 million to $200 million (Conrad, 235). The campaign not only reaped almost $50 million in profit, but also illustrated to the white corporate and advertising world the enormous potential of the black consumer market. Despite the success of Pepsi-Cola’s targeted marketing, the purchasing power of minorities went virtually unrecognized until the late 1960s and early 1970s. The social, political, and economic changes sustained through the Civil Rights movement permitted minority groups to join the consumerist market. Their formal role (as stand-in peripheral images) was replaced and “elevated” to that of the consumer.
The images unveiled to this new audience of consumers were largely a distorted reflection of the cultural attitudes and social movements associated with the era. For African Americans these depictions were associated with black power, black consciousness, and the black nuclear family. Recognizable images, such as the black power fist, were co-opted and used to entice black costumers. The tobacco industry was exceptionally skilled at marketing notions of blackness in association with their product. A 1970 Newport Lights ad featuring a black panther-esque couple holding a cigarette in the raised fist of black power remains a significant example of the appropriation of black images of for the sake of consumer appeal.
Paradoxically, an entirely different set of images was also being produced during the same period to appeal to a black audience. Although representations of black power were prominent within advertising, the commercial appeal of white beauty standards was also heavily depicted. Luxury goods that evoked a sense of fantasy and higher socioeconomic status presented the tropes of white beauty: light skin, straight or wavy hair, and blue or green eyes. White Eurocentric beauty was the absolute standard, depicted in the images of African American, Latino, and Asian models. The concept of Eurocentric beauty as being superior to all other forms of diversity continues to contribute to the demoralization and devaluation of bodies of color. Four points on the images of ethnic minorities in advertising are notable:
1) Until in1980s, there were virtually no ethnic minority fashion models on the runways or in mainstream print media. This omission of positive ethnic minority images represented the persistent symbolism of status quo in which minority equality is viewed as threatening to whites.
2) Contemporarily, ads are becoming an “ethnic rainbow.” The saturation of ethnic minority images in mainstream broadcast and print media tracks racial advances.
3) Despite the large increase in ethnically diverse advertisements, problems remain with how their images are marketed to the public. Ethnic minority models in ads often conform to standards of white beauty.
4) At other times models are exploited (exoticized) through their ethnic or phenotypic features. This trend of playing up unique ethnic characteristics is similar to the form of symbolic racism seen in which minorities are portrayed with distant images, or presented as the “other.”
Popular culture provides countless examples of black female appropriation and exploitation of “negative sterotypes” to either assert control over the representation or at least reap the benefits of it (Hooks, 65). The appropriated image of black female bodies (and other ethnic women, e.g. the “spicy” Latina or the docile Asian) asserts the notion of overt sexual availability. The black male body is also branded with the trope of wild sexuality. Take for example a 2012 Pirelli sportswear ad featuring models Tyson Beckford and Naomi Campbell. Both figures are represented in their peak of physical strength and sexuality. Both Beckford and Campbell are photographed naked, with the exception of the product being sold. The sexualization of their bodies turn the consumers gaze away from the product and directly to their bodies, the product that is actually for sale. In her critique of representations of black female sexuality in the cultural marketplace, Bell Hooks asserts that issues of representation work within the framework of white supremacy. She states:
There is a direct and abiding connection between the maintenance of white supremacist patriarchy in this society and the instituationalization via mass media of specific images, representations of race, of blackness that support and maintain the oppression, exploitation, and overall domination of all black people. Long before white supremacists ever reached the shores of what we now call the United States, they constructed images of blackness and black people to uphold and affirm their notions of racial superiority, their political imperialism, their will to dominate and enslave.
If we analyze Hook’s statement within a contemporary framework, it becomes apparent that the images portrayed in advertising only further advance the agenda of dehumanization and disempowerment. The ethnic body not only becomes a site for sexual fantasy and pleasure in advertising, but also a direct target for the consumption of vice products. The pervasive advertising in predominantly African-American and Latino communities of products such as alcohol and fast food continue to be a mainstay in outdoor advertising (Kwate, Lee, 21). The saturation of these images, seen on billboards, bus stops, street corners etc., paired with consumer accessibility, can have a lasting effect on the overall health of predominately black and Latino low-income neighborhoods. Ultimately the commodification of the ethnic image becomes the tool used to extirpate the population.
(Please feel free to email me for sources. Unfortunately I lost the original copy of this Essay)