Most obviously the advertisement embodies the assumption that white males are typically authority figures, usually with more prestigious career positions and Black males are more likely to be nameless, faceless laborers. The “naturalization” of this system of power, as Hall would call it, is evident in the way one reads the text and accepts the representation of white and black people in this stereotypical manner as common place (Hall, 1997). The ad also depicts the assumption that all Black people are superior athletes and although this is not necessarily negative, it is a stereotype none the less, one that Stuart Hall discusses in his writing on “The Spectacle of the 'Other'”.
Oscar Gandy's idea that race is a theoretical construct, that its meaning is fluid and ever changing is also evident in this media text (Gandy, 1998, p.5). Although truly appalling, the strategic arrangement of the models in this ad conjures up images of African slaves rowing colonial slave ships to North America. This image however is extremely latent in the picture and one must be looking closely and critically to discover it; instead one is more likely to see the Black men as sprinters, a more modern race typology. This is evidence that the once prominent idea of African people as slaves is now only a memory replaced by our new mental constructs of Black people.
The specific way the African American men in this ad are photographed is evidence of something Stuart Hall refers to as “essentialism.” The men are faceless and are wearing the same clothing, they are reduced to one idea: the men are nothing but runners (Hall, 1997). This assumption that athleticism is inherent to being African American is essentialism in its purest form. This advertisement does not appear absurd on the surface as it is widely considered to be natural that all Black people are athletes. Stereotypes such as this and advertisements such as this one reduce everything about a person to those traits and exaggerate them to infer meaning based solely on one attribute of a person or group of people (Hall, 1997).
Advertising must account for and play with these stereotypes or “schemas” as Gandy would put it, that we have about racial groups. When one experiences something that is inconsistent with their mental schema it causes them mental discomfort and this discomfort does not lend itself to the sale of goods of which is the purpose of advertising (Gandy, 1997, p.51). For this reason, I'm sure advertisers use knowledge of common mental schemas to assure that their advertisements embody the public's preexisting ideas so as to put their consumers minds at rest and assure a positive response to their ad campaigns. That is to say, it is not only important to study the representation of race in advertisements for equality reasons, it is important to be a critical media consumer and be aware of the ways race representation can be manipulated to sell goods and further instill sometimes negative ideas about racial groups and individuals.
Sources:
Gandy, O. (1998). The Social Construction of Race. In Communication and Race: A Structural Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press. (pp.35-92)
Hall, S. (1997). The Spectacle of the “Other” in Representations: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage Publications. (pp. 224-279)
