A Washington Post article reports that the company who is selling the dolls says: “the dolls are not made to be exact replicas of the first couple’s daughters and are not based on the Obama girls.”
Obama’s press secretary says: “We feel it is inappropriate to use young, private citizens for marketing purposes.”
What do you think?
UPDATE: The company has reportedly retired the Sasha and Malia dolls.
I am curious as to what you, Readers, think of the recent rash of advertising capitalizing on Obama’s “brand.” Here are some examples (found here, here, here, and here).
Budweiser American Ale:
A language school in Israel:
Ikea:
In other posts we’ve suggested that ads that appropriate feminism trivialize gender inequality and ultimatly undermine feminist efforts to attain social justice for women (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). Like many of the “feminist” ads, these ads seem to be genuinely celebrating Obama’s election. Do they? Or do they trivialize everything he claim to stand for and the difficult road ahead for both him and the country? Something in between? Something else entirely?
What do you think?
NEW: Breck C. pointed out the Obama Chia Pet:
Amid a controversy that the Obama Chia pet was racist, Walgreens pulled the product.
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.
In this series I have offered five explanations of why people of color are included in advertising. Start with the first in the series and follow the links to the remaining four here.
I am now discussing how they are included. Already I have shown that people of color are often whitewashed, that they tend to be chaperoned by white people, and that they are often subordinated through placement and action.
In this ninth installment, I illustrate how, while interracial friendships are frequently pictured, interracial relationships are very rarely pictured. Look closely, who is (hooking up) with who?
Also in this series:
(1) Including people of color so as to associate the product with the racial stereotype.
(2) Including people of color to invoke (literally) the idea of “color” or “flavor.”
(3) To suggest ideas like “hipness,” “modernity,” and “progress.”
(4) To trigger the idea of human diversity.
(5) To suggest that the company cares about diversity.
How are they included?
(6) They are “white-washed.”
(7) They are “chaperoned.”
(8) They are subordinated through placement or action.
Christoph B. sent in these Goldstar Beer ads, found at BuzzFeed, that show the differences between men and women:
I know that I, for one, immediately start thinking about marriage every time I meet a guy. My new male neighbor waved at me the other day, and I ran out and bought a wedding dress, just in case.
The other thing here is the assumption that a) the viewer is definitely a man and b) of the two options, the “man’s” life is always preferable. I suppose in the second two ads that might be reasonable–although I never experience all that many problems using public restrooms, but whatever–but why is it automatically better to have sex with no emotional attachments or expectations of ever interacting again? I doubt that all men enjoy such encounters, any more than all women are thinking of marriage every time they have sex with someone.
Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.
Both Cole S. and Toban B. found this Nestle’s candy bar (Cole saw it at World Market):
The Yorkie website was down (the error message said for routine maintenance) when I tried it, but Toban managed to snag some quotes from it earlier that indicate how the bar is being marketed to men. The bar is described as “a big, solid, chunky eat, uniquely for men,” and the site goes on:
Yorkie is positioning itself as a chocolate bar for men who need a satisfying hunger buster. With five solid chunks of chocolate, it’s a man sized eat…
[Earlier] advertising reflected this with macho imagery – lorry drivers who take it one chunk at a time…
Yorkie still holds these values today but was relaunched in 1994 as a hunger satisfying bar.
It’s similar to the way that Hungry Man frozen dinners are marketed: the association with working-class male appetites, which presumably require big, “solid” meals to satisfy them after their hard days of work. Clearly any candy bar this serious isn’t appropriate for women. Oh, excuse me…not a candy bar, a hunger-satisfying bar. Women eat chocolate for emotional reasons or to bask in the luxury of the taste; men eat chocolate just to fill their stomachs. Notice that the advertising doesn’t focus on the types of things we generally see in Dove or Hershey’s ads for chocolate bars: the chocolate being rich, smooth, delicious, etc., which imply that eating chocolate is an indulgence rather than just a practical way to satisfy your hunger.
Also, in our comments Trevor pointed us to a conversation about a pink version of the Yorkie. I am completely perplexed. Along the top it says “VERY LIMITED EDITION.” Along the bottom is says “5 HUNKY CHUNKS OF MILK CHOCOLATE.” Along the top, diagnolly, it reads: “GET YOUR LIPS AROUND THIS!”
So is it a girl version? I can’t tell. The female figure is still crossed-out with the “no” symbol. I don’t know what pink thing she is holding. I am perplexed.
Also note, Men’s Pocky (thanks Lis Riba):
Candy, like other high-sugar products, are often gendered female. Perhaps that’s why this candy marketing is making such a big point of making candy manly? Notice that the Men’s Pocky is “bitter,” i.e., not too sweet. That seems to be happening a lot these days, as in the new Snickers and Twix marketing, see here, here, here, and here.
NEW! Keely W. sent in a commercial for Mars’ new candy bar aimed at women, Fling (found here). The message: You shouldn’t (sexually) indulge a lot, but you can (sexually) indulge just a little… with the help of Mars Co., of course.
Morgan A. sent in a photo of this poster, seen in the Paris Metro in 2002:
The text says, more or less, “No women’s bodies were exploited in this ad.”
Looking around online, I was able to find another version (found here) with the same text:
Both are ads for Eram, a French shoe company. One way to read them would be as a clever way of criticizing the use of women’s bodies in ads. But it’s also possible they’re ridiculing concerns about how women’s bodies are used, rather than trying to undermine such objectification.
What do you think?
Thanks, Morgan A.!
In this series I have offered five explanations of why people of color are included in advertising. Start with the first in the series and follow the links to the remaining four here.
I am now discussing how they are included. Already I have shown that people of color are often whitewashed and that they tend to be chaperoned. Here I show that, when people of color are included, they are often subordinated through placement and action. That is, they tend to be literally background or arranged so that the focal point (visually or through action) is the white person or people in the ad. You’ll see a lot of this in the previous posts in this series if you go back and look again.
Darin F. sent in this example from a poster for McDonalds Happy Meals. He noted the way in which the women were arranged, closest to furthest, by skin color:
NEW! I found another example of this skin color hierarchy, this time on a CD cover:
More instances in which people of color are background:
In the next two ads, the center of attention–or the action–is where the white woman is: 
Notice how in this ad, while there are three women of color (an exception to the tendency for people of color to be chaperoned), the woman front-and-center is clearly white:
Something similar is going on in these next two ads:
As Jean Kilbourne points out in her docmentary, Killing Us Softly, this visual representation of racial hierarchy tends to be found unless another axis of hierarchy is at work:
NEW (Mar. ’10)! Anina H. sent in this New York State flier advising mothers on feeding their babies. Notice that the flier includes women of three different races, but the ideal mother (“YOUR PRICELESS BREASTMILK!!!”) is white:
NEW (July ’10)! Naomi D. saw this welcome banner at the entrance of a Methodist Church. Notice how the racial hierarchy is represented on the banner with a White woman and child on the top, an Asian man below her, and a Black woman at the bottom of the banner:
As always, I welcome your comments!
Next up: Interracial dating, the last taboo.
Also in this series:
(1) Including people of color so as to associate the product with the racial stereotype.
(2) Including people of color to invoke (literally) the idea of “color” or “flavor.”
(3) To suggest ideas like “hipness,” “modernity,” and “progress.”
(4) To trigger the idea of human diversity.
(5) To suggest that the company cares about diversity.
How are they included?
(6) They are “white-washed.”
(7) They are “chaperoned.”
Ben O. brought our attention to this set of vintage ads (from Found in Mom’s Basement) that all use images of Black male servants.
This one for Cream of Kentucky bourbon was illustrated by Norman Rockwell. I can’t quite figure out what the expression on the Black servant’s face is supposed to convey:
Part of the text reads, “Why did Grand-dad so often take the trouble to get water from the rain barrel for his shave?” For some reason I have a feeling it wasn’t Grand-dad getting the water.
Thanks, Ben O.!
