From Pale To Pumped With Racial Stereotypes

If whiteness is the neutral category (that is, people of color are commonly understood to be raced while white people are not), then to be non-white is to be different in some way. The "bad" difference is the deviant (for example, the "welfare queen," the "thug"), while the "good" difference is the exotic, the interesting, the hip, the cool. Those that do difference in this good way add a certain spice to life. This two-page spread beautifully illustrates the way in which whiteness, since it is neutral (that is, nothing) is sometimes characterized as boring, bland, vanilla, whitebread, while being of color is, quite literally, more exciting.



Notice the way the ad goes from black-and-white to color, from a white model to a model of color (but not too dark-skinned), from straight to curly (but not too curly) hair, from a rather plain dress to one that looks vaguely ethnic, and from awkward standing to dancing (of course).

Posted by Lisa Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 12:56 AM Labels: , , ,  

5 comments:

  blandrew

March 29, 2008 at 10:38 AM

I can't help but flinch at the phrase "non-white", I recognize why it was employed, but fear it perpetuates the process of othering in a manner similar to this advertisement.

Overall though, great blog!

  Micah

March 29, 2008 at 4:32 PM

you seem unwilling to acknowledge that this "process of ordering" exists whether or not we talk about it.

by refusing to talk about it, as you seem to want to do, you are ignoring it. this puts us in an even worse situation, one where we allow race problems to exist intentionally unnoticed.

  blandrew

March 30, 2008 at 7:33 PM

Hmm,

Perhaps the intent of my response was unclear, I was merely voicing my hesitancy toward the use of the "non-white" trope, which in this context seems to be applied with a sense of irony. That is to say, for accessibility or ease of consumption.

It is a matter of semantics, I know, however, far from "ignoring" or "refusing" to talk about, "it", as you say, I hoped to reflect on the importance of language, and the role it plays in framing and perpetuating systems of oppression.

And, equally as important, the role of lexicon in discourse attempting to dismantle said systems.

  Anonymous

April 2, 2008 at 11:00 AM

It's a ploy to get the obviously racially delineated "non-white" demographic to "drink up the powdered sugar, just-like-Koolaid goodness because your kind really is hip and delightful; feed the need". [Crystal Lite comes in powder-packets aside from bottle; that's what that box is next to teh bottle in the ad.]

That's what I think. For people of "color". Just like BurgerKing ads being blatantly geared for black audiences the last 5 or so years. They realize white people are no longer drinking this crap so they need to move on to untapped markets and laughably have a sense of begrudgment against their old revenue pool in this ad.

You people need to realize you can't fix race relations by criticizing ads. Agencies are in a pickle to aim at target markets to feed themselves and I doubt the conspiracy subtext of your complaints is at play (unless Big Brother really does want black people to continue to pump up the diabetes statistics by pushing this lower-middle class beverage on to those joining, or wishing to join, that tax bracket). They aren't here to teach us proper race dialectics. Crap ad by poor students of culture. Woot. "They're out to get us". Damn right.

  Anonymous

April 3, 2008 at 8:09 AM

Wait, now: if you describe the Caucasian as normative, then you are racist. But if you don't have a normative, how can you have a variation from normal?

May I suggest we start using ethnic Asians for the physical normative for humanity on earth? Then we will at least be statistically correct, although still sociologically clueless.

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