In Killing Us Softly 4, Jean Kilbourne spent a lot of time talking about how women were portrayed in advertisements and the messages other women and girls were able to take from that. She also spent a fair amount of time talking about race as well because the advertisements that she showed all showed white men and women because there are so few advertisements of men and women of any other race and when they are portrayed in an ad it is usually in the background where they will not be noticed as much. Even today when people believe that racism isn't around as much anymore because times have changed, in advertising it is usually only white men and women and the few ads that do not feature a white person feature a couple who is black and usually include some kind of stereotype along with it. For example in one State Farm commercial there is a black couple that appears on screen arguing about what happened, during the arguments they resolve to stereotypes by the man suggesting that he wants a girlfriend who dresses in more revealing clothing as shown when he says: ...Statefarm is there, with a new girlfriend and the girl who appears is exactly the same but with clothes that show more skin. This commercial continues on with the black woman yelling at the man and belittling him. Advertisements result to stereotypes when using people who are not white and even then they only show men and women who are black, they rarely use people of other races like Hispanic, Native American, Middle Eastern, etc. In Rebecca Tallent's book Killing With Silence, Not Even Softly she describes how in popular literature like Stephanie Meyer's Twilight, Meyer describes any race that isn't white (even most of the vampires in her portrayal are white or have lighter skin tones) as the other race even though many of the books characters are Native American. "It seems Meyer does little more than to maintain traditional views of werewolves as images of 'treachery, savagery and bloodthirstiness'" (Tallent, 2011, p246). For those who have not read the books, the Native American characters of the Quileute tribe in Washington and they also contain a bloodline of werewolves where every other generation a boy (and in one case a girl) becomes a werewolf when they are old enough. Werewolves, by nature are very violent creatures and this is mentioned many times in the book that when they change into werewolves they cannot control themselves and have been known to hurt other people. An example used in the book is that the leader of one the packs scratched his girlfriend while changing and gave her permanent scars. Tallent goes on to make the connection between the bloodthirstiness of werewolves and the tales that men and women (especially white men and women) have passed down through the years about how Native Americans were bloodthirsty and loved killing settlers just for the sport of it. Even though many of the stereotypes mentioned in media of all types is not true it is often used as a way to catch people's attention, when Beyonce did an advertisement a few years ago where she sported jungle fashions and black face people reacted in outbursts claiming that by doing this Beyonce was making fun of her own heritage.
For more information, as well as expert opinions on the black face photoshoot visit here
For more information, as well as expert opinions on the black face photoshoot visit here
posted by Anonymous at 3:58 PM
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