Comments

1. dnA wrote:

   Subtext: Don’t you want a hot, ethnically ambiguous family?

   Posted 19 Dec 2007 at 7:45 am ¶

2. Neil wrote:

   more like ‘Don’t you want a woman who’s surgically infused to her child’s waist?’

   Posted 19 Dec 2007 at 10:00 am ¶

3. Wendi Muse wrote:

   OMG when i got this little fidelity thingie, i thought the same exact thing! i have bitched in the past about the generic black lady in stock photos, and latoya has even written a full piece on it:

   http://www.racialicious.com/2007/05/11/snarky-stock-photo-analysisor-recycling-racism-for-cool-points/

   it’s pretty sad to me that even in 2007, the idea of a dark skinned brown woman seems to be anything but normal or beautiful. i appreciate that ad agencies are working to include people of more diverse backgrounds in their ads, but i feel like all the black women look EXACTLY alike…curly hair, fair skin…and their kids as well…even when i see an image of a parent or couple that has darker skin, their child usually has lighter skin, lighter eyes, and curly hair (the big locks kind, not the corkscrews or the naps). i think it just reinforces the serious issue we have with colorism in the united states…both within POC communities, but also with regard to our society as a whole.

   Posted 19 Dec 2007 at 12:49 pm ¶

4. Nezua wrote:

   mmm. surgical infusion.

   Posted 19 Dec 2007 at 1:49 pm ¶

5. dnA wrote:

   Dude, infusion is so much more awesome when you do it the old fashioned way.

   Cosign on Wendi’s comments.

   Adjusted subtext: Isn’t it nice when you have a black family that’s not too…black?

   Posted 19 Dec 2007 at 2:01 pm ¶

6. gatamala wrote:

   co-sign w/ Wendi. It kills me when they have a relatively dark-skinned mom & the girls is a light complexion with a totally different hair texture. They almost always do this with the little girl. I have never seen an ebony-skinned little girl in an ad.

   Posted 19 Dec 2007 at 2:49 pm ¶

7. michelle wrote:

   Co-sign on Wendi and Gatamala!

   I have seen a dark skinned Black girl maybe once or twice…dark skinned boys are more frequent…

   I guess dark skin doesn’t sell. Or so they say.

   Posted 19 Dec 2007 at 4:56 pm ¶

8. Mickey wrote:

   I knew I was not the only person who noticed this!

   I work in a kids clothing store and our ads are like what Gatamala and Michelle are saying. The girls are curly haired and fair skinned. One of them even has blue eyes. The little boy is real Black (fresh fade and all).

   But since we are on the “skin color in advertisement tip”, has anyone noticed how all the couples in eHarmony’s ad are all perfectly matched. I saw an ad last night with an “Asian” girl (homegirl has a White parent, I just know it!) and an Asian guy. Not to say that Asian’s don’t marry their own, but from what I see in my neighborhood, it doesn’t happen to often.

   Just my 2 cents

   Posted 19 Dec 2007 at 5:55 pm ¶

9. Rachel S. wrote:

   dna said, “Isn’t it nice when you have a black family that’s not too…black?”

   I think this problem is getting worse. Most of the “black” children I see look biracial (They may or may not be, but their appearance is often racially ambiguous or light.). I have even heard and seen people tell mixed race couples that their children should go into modeling because “those kids are sooo beautiful.”

   The hair point is also good because it seems like they rarely portray these black children in common back hairstyles (that black parents actually have their children wear). The boys often have long natural hair that looks unkempt, and while I don’t have a personal problem with little boys with long hair, I don’t know many black parents who have their kids in those hairstyles. The same goes for girls; most black women I know don’t have their daughters wearing their hair in the styles you see in the ads. A part of me wonders if they just don’t have anybody on the photoshoots who knows how to style black children’s hair and other other part of me wonders if they think it looks more acceptable because the hair looks longer.

   My husband has tried to get stock photos of black people for websites he has, and it is really hard to find pictures of blacks in non-workplace settings. Family pictures have been particularly tough to find.

   Posted 19 Dec 2007 at 8:54 pm ¶

10. Karen wrote:

    ^^^It seems a bit more lax on males in general…

    Posted 19 Dec 2007 at 9:52 pm ¶

11. Josey wrote:

    I attended a seminar run by a talent agent who actually said that agencies were only interested in racially ambiguous models for print and TV ads. He was not shy about saying so. This trend is not accidental or unconscious.

    Posted 20 Dec 2007 at 9:59 am ¶

12. cw wrote:

    They aren’t lax on the males most times they are not in the ad. The little mixed girl will be there by herself.

    Posted 20 Dec 2007 at 1:04 pm ¶

13. TheLostGirl wrote:

    Ha! I used to work for a charity, and I actually remember using this specific set of photos for a fund raising piece I was marketing. Oh the shame, the shame!

    No, really there is *nothing* sinister going on when marketers pick images like this, we just need a picture that works well with the theme of the event… Honest!

    Posted 21 Dec 2007 at 10:10 pm ¶

14. S wrote:

    I don’t think they are more lax on “boys” in general. Most of the time I see a black family (in print or commercial), the little boy is almost always brown or dark brown, rarely light skinned or “mixed looking”. Now white boys…there’s more flexibility there.

    When I do see an ad with a dark skinned little girl, it is usually on a perm ad, de-tangle spray, or some other “Your hair is nappy, thus bad, and this will make it better” product ad. Or, of course, feed the starving children in Africa.

    @ Rachel S. punchstock.com usually has a good variety of photos featuring black families & women.

    Posted 22 Dec 2007 at 9:54 am ¶

15. Ashley wrote:

    Ha ha, Mickey — the eHarmony comment! I always thought they made the couples look like siblings. It creeps me out! Once you start noticing, you’ll never be able to get it out of your mind. UgH!

    Posted 26 Dec 2007 at 1:32 am ¶

16. Lyonside wrote:

    >It kills me when they have a relatively dark-skinned mom & the girls is a light complexion with a totally different hair texture

    Gatamala, that doesn’t bug me SO much as when you have both “parents” portrayed in an ad or TV show, and the “kids” look like a grafted branch of the genetic tree.. Genetics is wacky, but it’s not THAT wacky, people!

    >But since we are on the “skin color in advertisement tip”, has anyone noticed how all the couples in eHarmony’s ad are all perfectly matched.

    Re: EHarmony – I’ve heard (though no real proof) that the site, in addition to only pairing boys/girls, in keeping w/ the “conservative-Christian” beliefs of the founder, also pairs people by “race”/ethnicity.

    Which if true is stupid beyond belief, especially if there is no option for people to say that they are or aren’t open to inter”racial” matches.

    Every time I hear “compatability” now on their ads, I flinch, going, “Yeah, you wouldn’t know WHAT to do with someone like me.”

    Posted 26 Dec 2007 at 10:02 am ¶

17. Samara wrote:

    I totally noticed the eHarmony ads and they freak me out!

    Posted 02 Jan 2008 at 5:31 pm ¶