How far has advertising progressed in the last century? (Spoiler alert!: Not very far at all.) Let's take a look at some vintage ads and their more modern counterparts:  |
Then, you could use Pears' Soap to get "good and clean". |
Of course not! You want to be "fair and handsome", according to this ad.
Apparently, the two are exclusive.
Then, these White men were just sort of confused about why this stereotypically represented indigenous man wouldn't want to wear a lovely pair of oxfords...
But now, this chick is downright pissed. Beware..."White is coming".
White man asking Black man to bow then....
And now, a White man having a bunch of Black men bow down to him.
Can't you see this dude on a plantation?
It seems to me that the key in advertising is to reinforce societal beliefs and power dynamics ever so subtly; every once in a while (really, pretty damn often) an advertiser slips up and creates one of the ads that we see above. But which advertisments are worse - the ones that are glaringly, overtly racist, or the ones that perpetuate racism in a covert way?
The problem with ads that are so clearly racist is that the public can rally around them; they can be part of the outcry of how sad the skin-lightening ads are, how awful it is that this company should be promoting light skin over darker complexions. It's an easy out, something we can all point to and say "shame, shame".
But the covertly racist ads are even more insidious, I would argue. A marketing campaign doesn't have to promote skin bleaching to send the message that white skin is better than brown skin. It only has to have almost exclusively White models, or equate Whiteness with fairness, goodness, and happiness, for example. The message still gets across, only when it's covert or subtle, there isn't as much public awareness or outcry.
What do you all think about how race is represented in advertising? Have you seen any ads recently that reinforced racial stereotypes?
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