We are bombarded with advertisements every day. What to buy, what to eat, what to wear. And though these ads may seem harmless, albeit annoying, they could very well be fueling our subconscious. Ads have the power to control emotions and warp ideas. The whole of advertising is to appeal to the consumer to buy Company X's product. It is through this control, if you will, that companies seek to advertise in just about any way they can. From sexual exploitation of men and women, to "tokenizing" minorities to appeal to a particular audience, advertisements have the power to create and perpetuate stereotypes. Wether that is positive or negative, however, depends on the ad itself.
Bell Hook's article, "Eating the Other," describes the idea of "Other" or "Otherness." "...the United States exploits conventional thinking about race, gender, and sexual desire by "working"...the idea that racial difference marks one as Other" (Hooks 1992, p. 367). Now Other can be perpetuated towards any race or gender, but for this purpose, it is in contrast with white supremacy, and the specific Other is that of black men and women. The concept of sexual desire towards the Other was particularly interesting, as Hooks described it as "getting a bit of the Other." The Other is seen as this rare object, to be sexualized, conquered, and then, as Hooks fears, to be forgotten about. The Other is often depicted in advertising as something to crave, maybe even something to sleep with.
Black women are not only seen as Others, but fall into the same sexualized gender role as other women. Take for example this Broomsticks ad, which was apparently a slacks company in the 1960s.
Not only does the ad showcase nothing about pants, it sexualizes and commodifies the black woman in the print ad. She is being tossed around like a play toy, a thing to be desired. She is scantily clad and her hair is partially covering her face. "When race and ethnicity become commodified as resources for pleasure, the culture of specific groups, as well as the bodies of individuals can be seen as constituting an alternative playground where members of dominating race and genders, sexual practices affirm their power-over in intimate relations with the Other" (Hooks 1992, p. 367). Just like the young male Yale students in Hooks' article describe their sexual conquests of Black, or Native American, or Asian women, here too does this group of men in the ad wrestle around their conquest of the Other. It is all a game to them after all.
The Other is ultimately made to seem desirable, because it is different, even unattainable. It enables someone to "enter the world of experience."
An American Apparel Ad
Hooks also mentions how advertisements "exploit notions of Otherness with both visual images and text." Seen here is a Vogue ad with the slogan "Jungle Fever."
Colloquially, sexual preference or attraction towards black men and women is often nicknamed as "having jungle fever." Not only is this overtly racist, but puts the Other into the spotlight of being exotic or foreign. From elsewhere than the typical white suburbia, if you will. Sexual exploitation of the black male Other is not escapable either. Seen below is this Dove ad featuring their candy bar with a chiseled torso as their background.
The slogan reads "Six Pack that melts a girl's heart. Dove chocolate." The ad literally equates the "dark chocolate" man with a candy bar that will bring about the passion Hooks mentions, in women. The ad doesn't even show his face. It's his body, that ever desirable "flesh," that we care about.
Gloria Anzaldúa, in her novel Borderlands/La Frontera, also describes people who are not white as being marginalized and "othered." Though her stance on how Western social hierarchies have influenced oppression is nothing to be argued, she interestingly does not let us forget that other cultures are culprits too. "The Chicano, mexicano, and some Indian cultures have no tolerance for deviance. Deviance is whatever is condemned by the community... fear [is] beingdifferent, being other and therefore lesser, therefore sub-human, in- human, non-human" (Anzaldúa 1987, p. 40). The Other may change "its" form culture to culture, but the idea of Otherness is still ever present.
In many ways, we are attracted to this so-called deviance. But it seems we have also rejected this deviance too. Either way, have you noticed that by categorizing minorities as Others, individual identities fail to emerge? It is safe to assume this bombardment of ads and images will cease to falter, the Other being a constant poster child for tokenism. However, I think Hooks put it best when she said, "we cannot accept these new images uncritically."
