Generic depictions of white athletes

[Electric Slide]

The reason I'm posting this is because while at a bar, I saw a commercial that appeared to be a generic scene of the 100 m finals of the Olympics. I think it was for some sort of watch, and the catch line was that "you can make time stop."

Out of 8 runners, there was one white guy running. Of course the way the ad was filmed concentrated on the lead black runner, and the way his legs were grinding down the track, with two black challengers right behind him. As it let up, it appeared that the one white runner finished 6th out of 8.

I was just wondering if this was the thoughts many people had, that there are some, although few white athletes, that can make it to a high level, but they will finish towards the end of the pack.

I give them credit for not showing the white guy finishing last, but by doing this generic view of athletes, it reinforces stereotypes that white guys can do those high profile events like sprinting.

I've also seen a number of ads where the generic athlete is black, like the DLP commercial "It's the mirrors," with the black receiver saying his image is blurred because he moves to fast. Or beer posters at the store, which oftentimes show blacks running with the football.

I want to know what others think of this generic depictions, what effect they promote, and whether white guys are represented fairly, or is it just simply depicting their actual representation in the sports.

 

[Don Wassall]

What's in the background is just as important as what's in the foreground. Every aspect of the media, especially advertising, is a science.


When I watch television I'm always asking myself questions: Why did they show this shot and not that one? Why was it edited this way? What imagery and messages are they showing? What is the racial composition of the cast and what roles are they given?


I always like to look at backgrounds to see what's going on. Depictions of inter-racial couples, for example, have always been far more common in the background than the foreground.


In a commercial every single frame is well thought out and conceived to deliver whatever the intended message is. Often the messages are attempted subliminally. Just take a look at Esquire or Rolling Stone and other magazines -- often times the first 20 or 30 pages are clothing ads with models in bizarre poses. The white male models are often effeminate in appearance. They likely alsocontain quite a bit ofsubliminal sexual symbolism, as first written about by Brian Wilson Keys many years ago and most likely perfected since then.


Even an NFL football game is a highly scripted event. Every crowd shot must show blacks or some kind of "diversity," even if they are the only non-whites out of 80,000 people in attendance (this holds true for all sports coverage). How often the cheerleaders are shown, which players, which ones are interviewed, etc., everything is planned out ahead of time. It wouldn't surprise me if the Caste lingo is also codified in some form, though every announcer is aware of how black athletes are to be lionized at every opportunity while white athletes are unathletichard-working overachievers with non-stop motors.


Watching TV with the sound offcan bean enlightening experience.

 

[GiovaniMarcon]

In fairness though, whenever I walk into an electronics store (Best Buy, Fry's, Circuit City, etc.) and look at the large screen TVs, there's often generic picture of a football game where opposing teams are on the line of scrimmage, and almost all the players are white.

I can buy that for the offense, but realistically, the defense should be blacker if they want to show how things really are right now.

 

[GWTJ]

They likely also contain quite a bit of subliminal sexual symbolism, as first written about by Brian Wilson Keys many years ago and most likely perfected since then. 

I read his books. He was making a believer out of me until his chapter on music lyrics. If he was as fantastically off the mark about sex in advertising as he was about drug messages in the lyrics of The Beatles 'Hey Jude' and Simon and Garfunkel's 'Bridge over troubled water', than I won't be looking for the word 'Sex' on Ritz crackers anytime soon.

I'm not saying there aren't sexual messages in magazine adverts, but Keys felt that sex was everywhere in every product advert.

As for the NFL, they seem to have hit upon a very successful formula for presenting NFL games on TV. They keep the NAACP off their backs, they give the drunk white fans what they want, they make money for their advertisers and they find time to promote their own sport along the way. I would say the only problem for them is finding announcers that the public likes. Only a few seem to have a large audience approval rating.

I don't see them listening to any of our suggestions anytime soon, that's for sure.Edited by: GWTJ

 

[Don Wassall]

I rememberKey maintaining that if you looked at ads long enough in a kind of detached way that one could after a while begin to"see" the explicit sexual symbols in the ads. He had photos in his books of ads that he said had the symbols, but I could never see them. But I do believe advertising and the media in generalmay be more manipulative -- or at least attempts to be at different levels -- than even seasoned cynics realize. Being hip to the basic methods being used and the agenda behind them is the best antidote to the poison.Edited by: Don Wassall

 

[Electric Slide]

What's in the background is just as important as what's in the foreground. Every aspect of the media, especially advertising, is a science.


When I watch television I'm always asking myself questions: Why did they show this shot and not that one? Why was it edited this way? What imagery and messages are they showing? What is the racial composition of the cast and what roles are they given?


I always like to look at backgrounds to see what's going on. Depictions of inter-racial couples, for example, have always been far more common in the background than the foreground.


In a commercial every single frame is well thought out and conceived to deliver whatever the intended message is. Often the messages are attempted subliminally.Just take a look at Esquire or Rolling Stone and other magazines -- often times the first 20 or 30 pages are clothing ads with models in bizarre poses. The white male models are often effeminate in appearance. They likely also contain quite a bit of subliminal sexual symbolism, as first written about by Brian Wilson Keys many years ago and most likely perfected since then.


Even an NFL football game is a highly scripted event. Every crowd shot must show blacks or some kind of "diversity," even if they are the only non-whites out of 80,000 people in attendance (this holds true for all sports coverage). How often the cheerleaders are shown, which players, which ones are interviewed, etc., everything is planned out ahead of time. It wouldn't surprise me if the Caste lingo is also codified in some form, though every announcer is aware of how black athletes are to be lionized at every opportunity while white athletes are unathletic hard-working overachievers with non-stop motors.


Watching TV with the sound off can be an enlightening experience.

Don, I cannot tell you how many times I have mentioned things I noticed in an ad, tv show, or movie, all for someone to say I am looking way to far into it. I tell them about how they spent lots of money, discussed the very things in a meeting room, and made the decision to do the things they did despite there being other available options. They ask me why I care so much, and I say it's because THEY cared so much to do it in the first place.

As far as the circuit city ads, I haven't seen those so I can't comment on it. But just today I see a billboard for the big ten network. All it shows is the shoulderpads and arms, but it's a black guy with a ball in his hands, and a white guy with his arm extended in front, having just missed defending the ball.

When I do see ads that show whites succeeding in sports, I'm happy because that image goes into people's minds. I used to think along the lines of, in my early teenage mind, "blacks are better, but there's always a few good white athletes that do compete." So these messages are extremely important. I'll try to come up with a list of ads that seem fair, unfair or neutral.

One that comes to mind was the "Bod" body spray add, they showed two equally built guys, one white, one black, both working out in football pants, and no shirt. Some girls were watching and enjoying the workout. They showed both guys equally performing, which sends a positive message from my standpoint. If you can think of any other ads that show this type of stuff, please tell about it.

 

[GWTJ]

Being hip to the basic methods being used and the agenda behind them is the best antidote to the poison.<!-- Message ''"" -->

That's the bottom line right there, Don. Way to sum it up in one sentence. I see the anti-white agenda in countless commercials. Especially kids products. The commercial will show a bunch of kids but the one type of kid missing is the white male. I have also noticed that one of the boys will be almost white, but upon closer inspection one can see that he is not. Because I have kids, I get a lot of flyers in the mail from Sears, J.C Penny and many others. I should post some scans of them.

The father of a friend of mine in H.S. was a close up photographer and also did high speed work. He did many commercials and told me that a lot of things are fake in a commercial. The food, the drinks, the ice and anything else that can't stand up to the hot lighting. So I guess if a company wanted to, they could try to create subliminal messages. I just don't think it is as omnipresent as Keys says it is.

If I remember Keys book correctly, the camel on a pack of Camel cigarettes really represented a pregnant woman. This is one of the parts of the book that was tough to believe or prove either way. At least for me.

I believe that any ad sets a mood or scenario. I don't think companies plant all these subliminal messages that we can't see yet manipulate us into buying the product.

 

[White Shogun]

I created a separate thread for this vid in Happy Hour, it's up but I'm not sure how many have seen it. The video is from Derren Brown, a Brit who uses neuro-linguistic programming and subliminal messaging to con people. This most particularly telling moment of the video for this thread is the second spot in the clip, where he commands people at a mall through subliminal suggestion.

Mind TricksEdited by: White Shogun

 

[Menelik]

Needs more cowbell.

 

[Guest]

From what I hear advertisers and producers are sensitive to any criticism. While they project to hundreds of thousands or millions with their products they seem at times sensitive to just a few rebukes. The most recent one I read about was Bob Whitaker wrote someone at the SciFi channel about the highlighting of interracial couples, and he claims they went away from it in their ads and show products. I know this is anecdotal but if true then we small numbers can focus our concerns and have a large effect on the media.

 

[celticdb15]

Here's one. Scheyer looked technically sound as he drove to the basket. HUH?? I think what you meant is that he ran past the negro and layed it in.

 

[Europe]

I remember Key maintaining that if you looked at ads long enough in a kind of detached way that one could after a while begin to "see" the explicit sexual symbols in the ads.  He had photos in his books of ads that he said had the symbols, but I could never see them.  But I do believe advertising and the media in general may be more manipulative -- or at least attempts to be at different levels -- than even seasoned cynics realize.   Being hip to the basic methods being used and the agenda behind them is the best antidote to the poison.<!-- Message ''"" -->

I read Keys' book and I could see the messages in things like ice in the drinks.

I just noticed today again when they have ads when a group of people are at a party, they always have to have a mix of people with a black guy many times talking to a white woman or that Walmart ad with the Super Bowl party depicted with a mulitcultural group of people which doesn't happen too often in real life.