Carnival pigs, blackface, and appropriateness in advertising

There has been a deafening silence about a particular advertisement that was published in print earlier this year, which made an attempt to guilt us about our gluttony over the Christmas holidays, and at the same time encourage us to get our bodies in shape for carnival.

The advertisement used a pig to add to its persuasiveness. The message was clear and powerful, but subliminally, it said much more and so (astonishingly) people called, tweeted, emailed, and Facebook-posted their apparent disgust to (and with) the company. It's a shame so few, if any, of the current-affairs programmes deemed it necessary to discuss this in the broader context of media representations of beauty and its impact on people.

It is important we acknowledge that referring to people as pigs has never been appropriate. There is nothing correct, no matter how we try to spin it, about a company approving an advertisement that essentially says you are a fat pig, you need to do something about your weight and you don't deserve to be in a carnival costume looking like a fat pig. Advertisements like these encourage people, women especially, since they are the usual target, to subscribe to a world view that only a certain kind of person (i.e white and in our case light-skinned) with a certain type of body (slim) is beautiful and worthy. It's not surprising (to me) the pig was female and had a darker hue.

not a good joke

Funny ad? Yes, well for those of us who are slim, take pleasure in poking fun at people who are fat (all the time), and are enthralled by the confidence of people who, in our view, should never be a carnival reveller in costume. But what about the people who the advertisement was intended to target (read poke fun at)? How do they feel? How would you feel if it were you? What about our children who are constantly bombarded with images and messages that foist a false notion of beauty on them? Some people I know said the company has simply articulated something many of us have thought about and have been afraid to say; but does that mean our insolent thoughts should become ads? I am not suggesting the advertisement was deliberate, but that doesn't reduce the offensiveness. And it would still be equally offensive if the pig were not a pig but an actual person. Thankfully, the company recognised it erred, pulled the ad, and apologised for unwittingly offending people, including its current and potential customers.

impact on women

As Melanie R. Salome (2009) said in an essay, The Unrealistic Portrayal of Women in the Media, "media plays a major role in dispensing influential images to us [and] has an incredible influence over the perceptions we have of ourselves." Kasey L. Serdar in her essay, Female Body Image and the Mass Media, postulates, "Images in the media today project an unrealistic and even dangerous standard of feminine beauty that can have a powerful influence on the way women view themselves. From the perspective of the mass media, thinness is idealised and expected for women to be considered 'attractive'. Images in advertisements, television, and music usually portray the 'ideal woman' as tall, white, and thin, with a 'tubular' body, and blonde hair."

The same is true of our local ads. Overwhelmingly, they feature people who are 'fair' skinned, slim, with 'pretty hair', and portray a certain socio-economic class. This isn't very representative of us.

While I am on the subject of advertisements, let us talk a little about how offended I am by that advertisement about 'loan fi eveybadi' where the main character uses blackface to sell the product/service. Blackface is a form of theatrical make-up that was originally used by white performers to represent a black person. According to Blair L. M. Kelley (2013), an associate professor at North Carolina State University, "Blackface minstrelsy first became nationally popular in the late 1820s when white male performers portrayed African-American characters using burnt cork to blacken their skin. Wearing tattered clothes, the performances mocked black behaviour, playing racial stereotypes for laughs." One famous minstrel character was Jim Crow who was said to have been born out of the folklore of the enslaved people in the Georgia Sea Islands.

stereotypes

It is sad that such a blatant racist stereotype of people of African descent as blackface has found its way on prime time television and has permeated our culture. While advertisements are intended to sell a product or service and are not public service announcements, it is important that we think carefully about the implicit messages they send.

As we celebrate Black History month and pay homage to our black foreparents, let us stop and think critically about the impact these stereotypes have on how we perceive ourselves, not as the beautiful and resilient people we are, but as caricatures that we've internalised.

Jaevion Nelson is a youth development, HIV and human rights advocate. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and jaevion@gmail.com.