Commodity Racism Analysis
Jack Clayman
Introduction to Media and Society
Professor Robertson
October 14th, 2009
Commodity Racism and The Dominant Ideology Commodity racism targets an audience by using the human body to sell a product. The ideology of race was a way to legitimize slavery and imperialism. Advertisements were able to exploit ‘the others’ or the primitive peoples as a vehicle to sell products. The primitive were illiterate, dependent upon the natural world rather than the masters of it, and lacking in complex social institution and mechanical technology. Where as the civilized were highly literate, Christian, developed technology, controlled nature, and brought the blessing of civilization to the heathen and to the primitive. It has become …show more content…
Colonial travel writers, traders, missionaries, and bureaucrats had continuously depicted African’s as dirty and undomesticated. The soap advertisements depicting the ‘before and after’ transformations were not only selling soap or bleach but a dominant ideology symbolizing imperial progress. In an ad for Chlorinol Soda Bleach, three boys are pictured in a soda box sailing in the ocean. The image contains two black boys pictured proudly holding boxes of Chlorinol. The third boy undoubtedly has already used the Chlorinol bleach because his skin is a distinct white. The sail of soda box reads ‘We are Going to Use “Chlorinol” and be like De White Nigger.’ In this add, the commodity is not directed towards the characters in the add because clothing bleach is not used by three naked children. The adds value lies in the fact it is a symbol of imperial progress. “The black children simply have exhibition value as potential consumers of the commodity, there only to uphold the promise of capitalist commerce and to represent how far the white child has evolved -- in the iconography of Victorian racism, the condition of ‘savagery’ is identical to the condition of infancy.” [3] The Chlorinol add displaces a social value to women’s household work on in the commodities message. McClintock believed the magical fetish of soap was that commodity can regenerate by washing the stigmas of racial and class degeneration. These ‘before and after’ advertisements message was not promoting the power, capabilities, and or characteristics of the products but of an imperial ideology signifying the superiority of the West and white over
Introduction to Media and Society
Professor Robertson
October 14th, 2009
Commodity Racism and The Dominant Ideology Commodity racism targets an audience by using the human body to sell a product. The ideology of race was a way to legitimize slavery and imperialism. Advertisements were able to exploit ‘the others’ or the primitive peoples as a vehicle to sell products. The primitive were illiterate, dependent upon the natural world rather than the masters of it, and lacking in complex social institution and mechanical technology. Where as the civilized were highly literate, Christian, developed technology, controlled nature, and brought the blessing of civilization to the heathen and to the primitive. It has become …show more content…
Colonial travel writers, traders, missionaries, and bureaucrats had continuously depicted African’s as dirty and undomesticated. The soap advertisements depicting the ‘before and after’ transformations were not only selling soap or bleach but a dominant ideology symbolizing imperial progress. In an ad for Chlorinol Soda Bleach, three boys are pictured in a soda box sailing in the ocean. The image contains two black boys pictured proudly holding boxes of Chlorinol. The third boy undoubtedly has already used the Chlorinol bleach because his skin is a distinct white. The sail of soda box reads ‘We are Going to Use “Chlorinol” and be like De White Nigger.’ In this add, the commodity is not directed towards the characters in the add because clothing bleach is not used by three naked children. The adds value lies in the fact it is a symbol of imperial progress. “The black children simply have exhibition value as potential consumers of the commodity, there only to uphold the promise of capitalist commerce and to represent how far the white child has evolved -- in the iconography of Victorian racism, the condition of ‘savagery’ is identical to the condition of infancy.” [3] The Chlorinol add displaces a social value to women’s household work on in the commodities message. McClintock believed the magical fetish of soap was that commodity can regenerate by washing the stigmas of racial and class degeneration. These ‘before and after’ advertisements message was not promoting the power, capabilities, and or characteristics of the products but of an imperial ideology signifying the superiority of the West and white over