Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Racism and stereotypes in advertising


In the past, advertising was extremely racist and was almost accepted in morality. Fortunately in modern times, attitudes have come a long way to counteract this phenomenon in advertising. Nevertheless, there are still traces of this outdated mindset that focuses on cliches and stereotypes. Because racism takes many forms, it can be viewed in several recent ads.

If you think the era of political correctness has taught advertisers to create campaigns that are more sensitive and intelligent, think again. They are still quite happy to play into fears and stereotypes associated with race. While political ads are notoriously racist and while some ads are sneakily suggestive, others are almost unbelievably shameless. 

Although some people claim that racism no longer exists, its presences can still be traced in modern society. This video displays racist advertising images that continue to dehumanize African Americans and other minorities. 




For example, images portraying African Americans as savage-like angry athletes that perpetuate pre-established stereotypes of them in American history currently circulate the media. This situation is troubling and distressing because society has unconsciously learned to normalize racist images such as these. It comes to show that it’s not that racism does not exist, simply, society has learned to turn a blind eye to the social injustices affecting minority groups.Keep in mind that these are just a small selection of the many racist ads that have shamefully been allowed to air. 



In 2007, Intel initiated a scandal with the poster below, This poster refers to slaves around a white master.






Unfortunately racism is a very complicated issue, noticeable, is something you see every day, everywhere and although every day we work to eradicate it completely, through advertising campaigns against racism, seeking to raise awareness, not something you can remove from one day to another. Only if we work together we can reduce somewhat this topic

2 comments:

  1. Unfortunately, racism is an issue that has been cultivated since many centuries ago and ignorance doesn't let us see the way to break this unacceptable belief.
    We have to work together to avoid stereotypes and a close minded society, but the question is... how can we do that?
    It's not something we can change from one day to another, because this way of thinking has been growing up with us since many years ago.
    We could think that people is more tolerant nowadays, but we forget we are living in a world where all these problems are hiding behind what the media want to show us.
    It's not enough to think of a better world if we don't reflect about what we are receiving. Don't follow those negative images and let's contribute our bit to change the world.

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  2. Unfortunately still happening today these discriminations and not just in advertising but in the daily life, it is really unfortunate because many people struggled to stop this and yet the society is so intolerant and disrespectful, I hope that a real and radical change will happen in our vision of respect in society, because now there is talk of tolerance and inclusion, but we continue with retrograde influenced thoughts.

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