NEWS:
Lisa was invited to co-host a Racialicious Podcast this week with Tami Winfrey Harris and Minh-ha Pham. If you’re interested, you can listen here.
Also, in case you’re new to SocImages, you’re welcome to friend us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
Sociologists use the term “racialization” to describe the process by which something that isn’t associated with any racial group, becomes newly associated. In October of 2007, we offered the pit bull as an example of racialization. Also features Weird Al Yankovic.
People often use the Gay Republicans as an example of a social organization that brings together two ideas that seem to be at odds. Another example, detailed in a post in October of 2008, is the pro-environment/anti-immigrant movement (protecting the environment means restricting immigration). The post features a couple really interesting ads.
Also, haven’t had enough Halloween yet? Here are our Halloween posts from previous years:
Two extra-special costumes (the Anna Rexia costume and the Sexy Scholar), Max Weber jack o’lantern (by yours truly), Obama mask sold as terrorist mask, a Sarah Palin effigy, handling sex offenders on trick-o’-treat day, and costume catalog analyses (here and here). See also, if you like, my Huffington Post about the race, class, and gender politics of Halloween.
NEWLY ENRICHED POSTS (Look for what’s NEW! Oct ’09):
Downright Offensive
It’s been a long time since we linked to our post featuring pictures from racial- and ethnic-themed college parties, but we found another example (this time Auburn University in 2001). In this one, college students dress up in Blackface and like Klan members. Delightful.
We added another example of a urinal shaped like a woman’s mouth, sent in my Liz B., to our collection of urinals and sinks meant to look like women’s body parts.
L. sent us a Facebook teaser for the movie DeadGirl (a movie about the rape and torture of a zombie woman) that describes the movie as “hot.” We added it to our DeadGirl post (NSFW, Triggering).
Like fashion shoots that present female models as dead bodies? We added more to our post of Lanvin ads that show women looking dead.
We added another example of ads featuring bound Asian women, sent in by Penny R.
Katie let us know about El Emigrante, a video game where the player is a bike-riding immigrant trying to avoid the police. We added it to our post about Border Patrol, a game where you try to shoot immigrants crossing into the U.S., including a pregnant woman.
War and Nation
A World War I British recruitment poster that portrayed the British Empire as a team working together reminded us of our post about re-imagining the U.S. military, so we added it.
Class
Steve, my private plane friend, send me some more pictures of the luxury of private aviation. A free, personal cinema, in this case.
Gender
Amanda C. sent us another example of an instance in which “sex” is conflated with women.
We updated our post comparing beauty pageant standards to standards for judging livestock with a photo taken by Steve P. outside a skincare store, in which a woman’s face is sliced up into parts to apparently help you pick the correct product for each section.
Our post on gendering and sexualizing foods has new additions: sexy fish sticks! And a Vegas restaurant appropriating feminist imagery from the 1960s.
We also updated our post about the controversy surrounding Jennifer Love Hewitt’s weight last summer with images of her in Self magazine showing her new, much slimmer body.
We also updated a post about a website that helps men find their “Ukrainian Beauty” with an image from a protest in Ukraine about sex tourism…that features scantily-clad young women.
Tawny T. sent us a video from Sweden about how heteronormativity affects gays, lesbians, and straight people. We added to our post on an Argentinian bank’s commercial that portrays transgender individuals positively and a Progressive insurance ad that may be portraying a gay couple, since the reason those two ads are so surprising is that we rarely see ones like them.
Rachael H. told us about Maxim’s guides to how men and women argue (Women are crazy! Men put up with their crap so they can have sex!) and we added it to our post of a video showing a range of “men are like this, women are like that!” stereotypes.
Will there ever be a month where we don’t add more examples to our post on pointlessly gendered products? Maybe not. This month we added gendered tips for choosing a mattress, gendered versions of Windows XP customization software, gendered epsom salts,gendered snuggies, and gendered Target gift cards. Submitted by Shannon C., Em, Ondi, and Dmitiry T.M.
Race/Ethnicity
We added images from a photo shoot in a Romanian magazine to our post showing people in poor parts of the world posed as props next to expensive fashions or White models.
Speaking of using the “Other” as a prop. Shakira has been using a set of undifferentiated Asian drummers in her recent performances. We added it to a previous post on this theme.
To my first post in a series about how people of color are used in advertising aimed (mainly) at white people, I added an example of a black woman being used to represent “rhythm.”
Jackie and Jasmine alerted us to another example of doctored diversity, this one from the University of Texas, Arlington.
Race and Religion
We added an image from Mother Jones depicting Newt Gingrich as a “guru” figure to our guest post on the National Review “wise Latina” cover of Sotomayor and other uses of Asian/Buddhist caricatures.
