Flashback Friday.
If whiteness is the neutral category — meaning that 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… the hot or spicy. Whiteness, in contrast, is boring, bland, or “vanilla.”
This two-page advertisement for Crystal Light beautifully illustrates these cultural ideas. 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). In the ad, whiteness is, quite literally, bland and being of color is framed as more flavorful.
Comments 22
andrew — March 29, 2008
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!
m — March 29, 2008
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
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
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.
Mikee — April 3, 2008
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.
Sociological Images » why and how people of color are included in advertising: 2nd in a series — June 24, 2008
[...] click here to see a Crystal Light ad that compares water a “pale” white woman and crystal light to [...]
Sociological Images » OPTIONAL ETHNIC IDENTITIES — October 1, 2008
[...] at the top of our racial hierarchy, Whites are also often portrayed as culture-less and boring (see this post for an example). So being not just “plain” American but instead Swedish-American seems [...]
COINCIDENCE, OR CULTURAL TROPE? » Sociological Images — August 12, 2009
[...] In a previous series about how and why people of color are included in advertising aimed at, primarily, white people, I argued that they are sometimes included to bring “color,” “spice,” or “flavor” to an otherwise “bland,” “white,” “vanilla” world. Illustrating this idea, I offered this post and this link to recent Crystal Light advertising. [...]
[image] African American women as “wild” and “exotic” « slendermeans — September 27, 2012
[...] the past about the ways in which ads often depicted non-White women as wild and exotic (and thus exciting), even conflating them with animals through poses or animal-print clothing. Unstraightened [...]
quick hit: African American women as “wild” and “exotic” | feimineach — December 30, 2013
[…] the past about the ways in which ads often depicted non-White women as wild and exotic (and thus exciting), even conflating them with animals through poses or animal-print clothing. Unstraightened […]
Bill R — April 11, 2014
My gut reaction is that this is yet another example slighting the majority as uncool and out of touch. It's a decades old, stupid and boring approach to advertising. How many time do we have to go back to the 1950s well before the corporate buyers of this stuff throw up?
Here we have the prim "young white girl" in a black-and-white, lifeless photo, "pale" say the tag, dressed to "fit-in"...someplace...anyplace, so long as she's far too safe and indistinguishable from others in her boring majority status. She's as exciting as a grain of sand of the beach. The woman of color--African American is what I see, not white, not asian--rocks, and is who you want to be. Free, full of life and with it.
The fact that half the faces of these women are cut off is interesting. I'm not getting it. Did someone at the ad agency spend too little on their market research study?
BTW, Crystal Light might have no calories but it tastes like cheap chemicals. I'll take a Diet Coke...
Steve — April 12, 2014
I like both images. Sometimes I need low stimulation, sometimes I need high stimulation. Yin-yang-like.
ThisMachineKillsLeftists — April 13, 2014
1. White people ARE pretty boring
2. The majority race/ethnic group should be considered statistically normative
>B-b-but it's not equal! Feelings!
Welcome to the real world, kids.
kittenhasawhip — April 13, 2014
Surprised that this article doesn't mention the blatant sexualization of the person on the right- playing to the stereotype of the sexed up "other," as opposed to the well-contained white feminine ideal. The one on the right is a "fun" "spontaneous" and "sexy" deviation from the feminine ideal, but this deviation is also one that is reduced to hypersexual displays of "exotic" femininity. The picture on the right is, maybe ironically, as simple and as "bland" to me as the the left.
Course Reflection | Sex, Gender, and Society — May 8, 2014
[…] http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2014/04/11/from-pale-to-pumped-with-racial-stereotypes/ […]