" - Winnie the Pooh
Reflection of the people?
Maybe I'm just a crazy American - well, of course I'm a crazy American, but we'll just end that train of thought right there.
Anyway...I'm used to advertisements trying to depict who I'd like to be and how their product can get me there. I mean, diet pills = hot skinny girls, Swiffer = happy mom with gorgeous floors, listerine/toothpaste = white shining (with a pretty CGI sparkle) teeth. The correlation is that all of them have supposedly average looking fellow country...uhm, people, yeah. Granted I don't buy into the 'average looking' part, but that's part of it - I mean, I'll look physically better if my floors are clean, no?
Well, I'm perplexed. Here I am in another country, but probably 75% of the people staring back at me in ads (especially printed ones) are Caucasian. Now, maybe I'm just in a small town, but I'm pretty sure 75% of the population here isn't Caucasian.
Maybe the mentality is different. I mean, I've heard it was popular (post-WWII) to have plastic surgery to round the eyes. Maybe some of the people here would prefer to be sold products by a Caucasian (have I used that enough, can I just say white guy?) Maybe "we" are more pushy so they feel more compelled to buy the product. ;) Maybe I'm some sort of weird backwards racist that can't understand why a people would prefer to be sold products by someone other than their own race. I mean, I don't think less of a product offered by an African American so maybe I should just look at it that way. Nevertheless, it goes against my conditioning.
One thing that is interesting, though, is that the ads, regardless of the race, are usually focused on the face of the person holding the object near his/her mouth. Sometimes it's just a face. I find it very easy to forget what those ads are about, but the image of the face lingers on. I can still clearly picture the girl on the poster in McD's (Asian, maybe for the Red Cross) and the guy (white) selling me a little wooden car...wait, no, he wanted me to buy a real one, but probably couldn't get that up by his mouth. Interesting technique...even if it's not what I'm used to.
Anyway...I'm used to advertisements trying to depict who I'd like to be and how their product can get me there. I mean, diet pills = hot skinny girls, Swiffer = happy mom with gorgeous floors, listerine/toothpaste = white shining (with a pretty CGI sparkle) teeth. The correlation is that all of them have supposedly average looking fellow country...uhm, people, yeah. Granted I don't buy into the 'average looking' part, but that's part of it - I mean, I'll look physically better if my floors are clean, no?
Well, I'm perplexed. Here I am in another country, but probably 75% of the people staring back at me in ads (especially printed ones) are Caucasian. Now, maybe I'm just in a small town, but I'm pretty sure 75% of the population here isn't Caucasian.
Maybe the mentality is different. I mean, I've heard it was popular (post-WWII) to have plastic surgery to round the eyes. Maybe some of the people here would prefer to be sold products by a Caucasian (have I used that enough, can I just say white guy?) Maybe "we" are more pushy so they feel more compelled to buy the product. ;) Maybe I'm some sort of weird backwards racist that can't understand why a people would prefer to be sold products by someone other than their own race. I mean, I don't think less of a product offered by an African American so maybe I should just look at it that way. Nevertheless, it goes against my conditioning.
One thing that is interesting, though, is that the ads, regardless of the race, are usually focused on the face of the person holding the object near his/her mouth. Sometimes it's just a face. I find it very easy to forget what those ads are about, but the image of the face lingers on. I can still clearly picture the girl on the poster in McD's (Asian, maybe for the Red Cross) and the guy (white) selling me a little wooden car...wait, no, he wanted me to buy a real one, but probably couldn't get that up by his mouth. Interesting technique...even if it's not what I'm used to.
posted by Wynnie | 04:41
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