Sociological Images

Sociological Images Updates (April 2009)

Lisa Wade, PhD on May 1, 2009

NEWS!

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FROM THE ARCHIVES:

April last year: This fascinating Italian anti-immigrant poster suggests that, if immigration to Italy is allowed, immigrants will persecute the native Italians like U.S. colonizers did American Indians. It’s a pretty amazing tactic.

NEWLY ENRICHED POSTS (bottom of post may not be safe for work!):

Total Drek revised an xkcd cartoon on the difference between causation and correlation. So we added it to our original post.

Sex sells ‘n stuff:

Sarah Haskins makes fun of euphemistic references to female genitalia. We added her video to our post on our efforts to avoid using the real terms.

Related to discomfort with women’s genitalia, Taylor D. sent in a link to even more vintage ads for Lysol as a douche, which we added to this post.

We added a vintage ad to our sex sells post. This one tells men that if they don’t buy Firestone tires, they won’t get laid. Women? Well I guess they don’t drive.

Also in sex sells, we updated our post on the sexualization of food, this time with a Max Factor ad and a not-to-be-missed Hardee’s commercial featuring Padma Lakshmi having quite the sensual experience with a bacon burger (scroll all the way to the bottom).

We also added another image to our post with examples of sex as “scoring.”

Now to sperm: We added three more images affirming the idea that we were all once a mighty sperm (eggs, apparently, just add nutrition, if that) to this post on the weird ways in which sperm are socially constructed. In one of them, a condom ad suggests that one condom could have prevented the holocaust by dressing a sperm up as Hitler. Another example dates back to the beginning of the idea in 1694.

On race and ethnicity:

We added material to two posts in our series on how and why people of color are included in ads aimed at white people. First, we added a set of photographs taken by Joshua B. at Office Max to our post showing how people of color are often portrayed as being more, eh em, colorful. Second, we added an image to our post on how people of color are literally background or arranged so that the focal point (visually or through action) is the white person or people in the ad.

We added images of sculptures that comically/stereotypically (depending on your point of view) represent European countries to this post about stereotyping nationalities. The installation was supposedly by 27 different artists, but it turns out to be a hoax; all of them were created by a single Czech artist.

Also in ethnic stereotypes, we added a cartoon from Life magazine suggesting that monkeys are insulted by being given Irish names. We added it to our collection of anti-Irish sentiment from the 1800s.

And visit this post to see our newest example of using the notion of the “savage” to sell in the 1950s.

Miguel sent us an image of a “White” Obama, which we added to our post that asks “What do Black and White look like, anyway?”

Philip D. sent us a set of Crown Royal ads that reportedly target a “general” and a specifically African American audience, respectively, which we added to our post about marketing products to different groups.

On gender:

Elizabeth M. sent us a link to fashion designer Nina Ricci’s new line of shoes. They’re high high HIGH heels! We added it to some other real hobblers here.

Women cannot be counted on to hold it together in the face of low calorie sweets… or at least that’s what another commercial tells us.

Ben O. sent us a link to a company that makes pink protective gear for female construction workers. We added it to our post featuring pink handcuffs for cops.

There’s now another image up from the Evan Williams bourbon “The Longer You Wait” ad campaign.

Keely W. sent in a link to the new Fling candy bar, just for girls. We added it to our post on gendered candy marketing.

The Daily Show spoofed the obsession with Michelle Obama’s clothes. Andrea G. sent in the link and we added it to our collection of examples of this obsession. We also added a picture of the cover of a new book: Michelle Style: Celebrating the First Lady of Fashion.

We added a picture of a sink that looks like a woman’s lower half to our post about urinals shaped like women’s bodies.

And, finally, does a month go by where we don’t update our BOOBS! post? Rarely. This time, though, we’ve got something special: Jezebel offered us a photo essay of a boob shaped milk cartoon, from fridge to trashcan. Visit our updated post here (scroll to the bottom) and enjoy this teaser:

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Target Women: Cars

Gwen Sharp, PhD on November 20, 2008

The ever-fantastic Sarah Haskins on car ads aimed at women:

For other examples of marketing cars to women, see here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Special 2008 Presidential Election Round-Up!

Lisa Wade, PhD on November 4, 2008

In honor of the election, we offer you a summary of all our election 2008 posts.

This election has certainly brought racial tensions front and center. We highlighted two racist caricatures of Obama: on a waffles box and as a cannibal. We also discussed the cover of The New Yorker on which Barack and Michelle Obama were caricatured as terrorists. Whether or not this was racist was widely discussed and offered an interesting opportunity to ask “Who decides what we talk about?” In response to the argument that we were being too sensitive about the caricatures, we offered some evidence that caricatures of black people do not need to be racist.

Anti-Obama propaganda also included comparison with OJ Simpson, a monkey, celebrities, Osama Bin Laden, fascists and communists, a terrorist, a terrorist again, and a “half-breed Muslin.” See here for other racist anti-Obama propaganda. Gwen asked “So what if Obama is an Arab?” (Note, too, this satirical T-shirt.)

We saw racialization–or the active production of racial meaning–in the fist bump controversy, in calling Michelle Obama a “baby mama,” and in asserting the whiteness of the White House. We discussed the resemblance between Obama and his Grandfather and the meaning of “Main Street” to illustrate the social construction of race. And we offered examples of white privilege: in one we discuss the option of white ethnics to emphasize their ethnicity; in two we discuss a cartoonist who calls Colin Powell a race traitor for endorsing Obama and a Howard Stern clip that suggests that Blacks only endorse Obama because he’s Black. We also remark on how easy it is to deride social theories of inequality.

The McCain/Palin ticket was no stranger to derision. See also our post in which the McCain/Palin ticket is said to be favored by Nazis, another in which Palin effigy is lynched, and a third that discusses ageism in the election.

We’ve also seen plenty of sexism in this campaign. Hillary Clinton has been represented as a nut buster, asked to “iron my shirt,” critiqued for crying, and called a “bitch.” There are more examples here and here. Also see this montage of sexism among political pundits. Both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin were sexualized. See here, here, and here for Clinton and here, here, here, here, and here for Palin. (By the way, Barack Obama was sexualized as well, see here, here, and here.)

We commented, more sociologically, on the gender politics of this election. We discussed the mothering of baby Trig, conservative feminism, the politics of pink, and took a humorous look at the women’s vote with Sarah Haskins.

We also pointed to the way in which Obama and Clinton attempted to appeal to small town people and the ease with which we make fun of them.

For the intersection of race and gender, see our post in which Michelle Obama is called an angry black woman, is said to need to “soften” to be a First Lady, and our post that features the Bros Before Hos T-shirt (scroll to the bottom). For the intersection of race and class, see our post on Obama’s negotiation of the “elitist” label. And, in making intersectionality invisible, see the SNL skit, “bitch is the new black.”

Looking more broadly at politics and media coverage, we discussed the portrayal of evil in the Reverend Wright scandal, McCain’s trivialization of war, the linking of a Democratic adminstration with a terrorist attack, pundit hypocrisy, political networks, a voter registration campaign that uses bondage imagery, suspiciously delicious polling techniques, how cell phones shape polling findings, and trends in media coverage of Obama versus Clinton and Obama versus McCain.

In addition, we offered some examples of punditry from alternative media: on young voters, a call for alliance from the labor movement, a call to get your Jewish grandparents to vote for Obama, a political revival of the Budweiser Wassap video, and two examples of art inspired by the election (here and here).

We also put up posts of figures representing public opinion on blacks, a woman president, and politician parents. And we offered images illustrating how the world would vote.

Finally, our favorite: “We’re not sociologists, we’re Americans!”

Cleaning Products are a Woman’s Special Friend

Gwen Sharp, PhD on September 23, 2008

In the comments to another post, OTM brought my attention to this segment from Target Women, by the wonderful Sarah Haskins (go here if the video doesn’t show up):

The sexualization of the cleaning products reminds me a lot of the way food is sexualized (search under the Food tag for lots of examples).

I suggest going to the Current TV website and just browsing through every segment of Target Women they have up. They’re all fantastic.

Thanks, OTM!

UPDATE: In another example of cleaning products being portrayed as “special friends,” Swiffer created a YouTube “break-up” channel where people were encouraged to “Show us how you ‘broke up’ with your mop and bucket, broom or feather duster and ‘traded up’ to Swiffer…” by creating videos of themselves singing break-up songs to their old cleaning products. The winner got $15,000.

Swiffer also has a series of ads where women “break up” with their old cleaning products:

NEW! (Nov. ’09) This Lysol commercial (found at BrandFreak) plays on the same theme:

From our archives: Christmas

Lisa Wade, PhD on December 23, 2016

Movie Reviews

The History of Christmas

Christmas and Consumption

Christmas Across Cultures

Christmas as Social Control, featuring Elf on the Shelf
Befana, the Christmas Witch
Santa’s Evil Side Kick
Black Pete (NSFW; trigger warning for images of blackface)
Protestantizing Christmas Gift Giving: The ChristKind
Snegurochka: Santa’s Granddaughter
Culture and Coordinating Human Action
Jewish Christmas — The Chinese Connection

The Economics of Christmas

Racializing Christmas

Racism and Xenophobia in “War on Christmas” Rhetoric
White Privilege and the Snow White Santa
New York Times Gift Guide for People of Color
Black Pete (NSFW; trigger warning for images of blackface)
Holiday in the Hood

Christmas and Gender

Gift Guides and the Social Construction of Gender

Sexifiying Christmas

Christmas Marketing

On Discourse:

Just for Fun

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.