Comments on: Undifferentiated Groups of Asians as Props

By: Return of the Prodigal Blogger « threadbared

Return of the Prodigal Blogger « threadbared — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 19:45:10 +0000

[...] (EDITED TO ADD: For good measure, Sociological Images has a post examining advertising featuring “undifferentiated groups of Asians as props.”) [...]

By: Influencethis

Influencethis — Sat, 08 May 2010 15:00:23 +0000

I’m so glad a man can tell women exactly what they’re doing wrong when it comes to feminism. It’s just like everything else in life!

By: macon d

macon d — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:59:52 +0000

SI, how does pointing out racism equate to becoming a racist?

Where does this post say that this is a “purely Western issue”?

And why is racism suddenly okay if people in other parts of the world are doing something similar?

The Arab Trader Argument, my friend, does nothing but undercut your credibility.

By: GWEN STEFANI’S HARAJUKU GIRLS » Sociological Images

GWEN STEFANI’S HARAJUKU GIRLS » Sociological Images — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 05:55:37 +0000

[...] also our post featuring other examples of ads and artists using Asians as props. 26 Comments Tags: clothes/fashion, cultural imperialism/(neo)colonialism, gender, [...]

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:04:41 +0000

I can honestly say that it’s people like you who make the rest of the feminist movement look ridiculous.

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:03:26 +0000

Everything can appear racist to someone who seeks out “racist imagery” and projects it onto everything he or she sees.

By: SI

SI — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:58:03 +0000

Asians portray white people in the same manner in local advertising. You’re making this out to be a purely Western issue. The fact is that you’ve blindsided yourself into becoming a racist yourself by ignoring the fact that races other than Caucasians are just as evenly capable of racism.

By: S

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 06:09:01 +0000

I think that the fact that a group of asian women dressed in traditional clothing are kneeling to two blond white people lit up in light while they seem to be on a sweat shop floor is quite significant. whether intended or not, the ad comes across as imperialist and makes me think of economic exploitation and the need for capitalist consumerism.

By: Andrew Jeske

Andrew Jeske — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:45:21 +0000

And if the ad used white people as the dancers, would you be accusing its creators of racism because they co-opted an Asian art form?

Anytime two races come together in one form of advertising, you can always make the accusation that there’s some underlying tone of racism. If you’re always looking for it, you will always find it.

So what’s your answer…segregated advertising? Or some silly idealized world where only white men are depicted as “inferior” or “an inhuman mass”?

By: “Easterners” are not collectivist automatons who are poor at analytical reasoning. « Restructure!

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:08:36 +0000

[...] Figure 2. German (blue) versus Chinese (red) way of life, according to a German art exhibit. The piece was created by a German-educated Chinese woman named Yang Liu. Compare this concept with Undifferentiated Groups of Asians as Ad Props. [...]

By: Desedo | Des Temps : Asian Efficiency

Desedo | Des Temps : Asian Efficiency — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:07:44 +0000

[...] HT:Sociological Images for the clip and Erin Lamberty for noting it. [...]

By: MHB

MHB — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 17:50:43 +0000

this ad also plays into the western trope of using asian ‘bodies’ as a signifier for technology and efficiency.

By: macon d

macon d — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:50:36 +0000

Thanks Gwen for these further examples of the common Western tendency to think of Asians in terms of undifferentiated hordes. I think the Palm Pre ad is racist for this reason, but also because it contrasts its faceless, homogenized group with an individualized white consumer at the center. As I wrote in a post about the ad awhile back:

I don’t see a problem with the Olympics connection, but why put a white woman at the center of all this vague Asian-ness?

And why make the group of apparently Asian people so homogeneous, and so individually faceless? Why portray them, that is, without a shred of the privileged, pedestaled, bowed-to individuality of the white, “first-world” woman at the center of things?

According to USA Today,

The message of the ad, by agency Modernista, is ease of use. Actor Tamara Hope sits on a rock in an open field surrounded by circles of dancers. In coordination with their synchronized dance moves, Hope shows some of the phone features.

The idea is that Pre is “a little more human and a little more approachable and about making your life better,” says [Palm Marketing VP Brodie] Keast, who would not disclose spending. “This is not really for work or play but for one life with many dimensions.”

Yes. An ad about “one life,” that of a Western white woman, who’s using an object that’s made “a little more human” by placing it, and the individual holding it, against a faceless, dehumanized backdrop of 1,000 choreographed, synchronized . . . puppets.

Ad makers don’t have to have racist intentions for an ad to end up being racist.

By: links for 2009-08-16 « Embololalia

links for 2009-08-16 « Embololalia — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 18:03:54 +0000

[...] Undifferentiated Groups of Asians as Ad Props » Sociological Images This reminds me a lot of some images from Britain’s Next Top Model that Lisa posted about last year, in which Africans were used as background props in a photo shoot with the contestants. The Asian individuals in these two ads are an undifferentiated mass, strikingly dressed and posed to show off the subjects of the ads–the White people who are foregrounded and depicted as specific, individual human beings rather than an interchangeable member of a group. (tags: race racism advertising) [...]

By: Bagelsan

Bagelsan — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 16:23:58 +0000

That’s ’cause white don’t get treated as a metaphor, they get treated like people.