Commercials: Representation Or Tokenism?

[Grant Jennings]

Commercials on television today feature more diverse representation than just a few years ago. I'm in favor of this but the way it's being handled feels slightly off. It's as there's a checklist they are following:
• interracial couple
• gay dads (sometimes, but less often, gay moms)
• dancing fat woman, preferably a woman of color

I imagine the major ad agencies sent their employees to Diversity Workshops and the employees came away with the same thought: "As long as we include a set list of depictions, we're good. We don't need to give this any further thought." It feels shallow and arbitrary to me.

 

[Daniel Avery]

It also demonstrates they're dictating quotas in their casting ("checking boxes") which is forcing casting directors to hire based on the actors' skin color or other characteristic rather than their ability to do the job. Some who pride themselves in saying they are "colorblind" are being asked to see it again, and it feels like a step backward rather than forward.

Representation is certainly important, but I think they're going overboard in the other direction to a point that it's bordering on comical.

 

[Willie Oleson]

It feels shallow and arbitrary to me.

More shallow than the perfect wife with the perfect husband and the perfect kids with the perfect white teeth and the perfect dog in the perfect house, and they're all perfectly happy and healthy because they're eating junk food?
Commercials are shallow? Gasp!

There are lots of gay people watching soaps so why shouldn't they buy fabric softener from Gay Dad?

 

[Grant Jennings]

More shallow than the perfect wife with the perfect husband and the perfect kids with the perfect white teeth and the perfect dog in the perfect house, and they're all perfectly happy and healthy because they're eating junk food?
Commercials are shallow? Gasp!

There are lots of gay people watching soaps so why shouldn't they buy fabric softener from Gay Dad?

I'm in favor of Gay Dad pitching products (though fabric softener is horrible, it damages fabric). It's just that it all feels a little off, there's something slightly askew, like Kate Smith singing with Cher and Tina Turner. Maybe it's just seeing "real people" in the Stepford Wives world of commercials.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

You're all right. And saying so makes me superior.

 

[Grant Jennings]

I have a better example of how these make me feel, I present Sandra Lee's Kwanzaa cake:

 

[Willie Oleson]

It's just that it all feels a little off,

Isn't that always the case with change? There's before and there's after, and right now we're in the middle of the change.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

There's change and there's social engineering. We all probably have a slightly different view as to where the line is.

The interracial relationship thing in commercials is a bit overdone right now, smacking of contrivance -- and I'm far from being a chocolate virgin my own bad self.

 

[Willie Oleson]

The interracial relationship thing in commercials is a bit overdone right now

But everything is always overdone, why is it different now?

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

But everything is always overdone, why is it different now?

It may not be. But should we not discuss it?

 

[Willie Oleson]

But should we not discuss it?

We are discussing it, not?

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

We are discussing it, not?

Should we hush?

 

[Willie Oleson]

Yes, sweet Charlotte.