brookes77, 4/21/09

In class today we talked about Belle Hooks’ essay. We focused on the United Colors of Beneton Advertisements. This company has been known for being one of the first to cast multicultural actors and actresses in their advertisements. When I was living in London last semester and when I visited Rome I saw a lot of these advertisements when I was shopping. They seem to be much more prevalent in the European culture rather than in American culture which I thought was interesting for I remembered them much more when I was younger. Beneton showed ads that were pretty uncommon such as a white baby sucking on a black woman’s breast. Beneton is trying to address the issue of how white culture others, other races, but really we define others so we can eventually define ourselves, and we all are different and the other race to each other. Beneton is trying to address the fact that we should all understand that we are on the same level but the hegemonic white voice says otherwise. One could argue that these advertisements are too risky and too avant guard, but really they are just making a point that when we put different races together we all have different views of each other, and we all are the same in the end, and we should understand this. Now it is even more interesting to show how Beneton advertisements are sending this message and at the same time have become more and more absent in the white American culture yet is still very publicized in other countries.
Another interesting issue that was discussed in class was the notion of how segregation was not the right word to describe exoticizing the other. We are not trying to be completely different from others, but we are trying to create a gap between races that shows the dominant race and power. If we were to segregate races there could be a threat of competition, yet by making a race different they are just a different version of what is normal and accepted. So creating a large gap in races is worse then segregating races in my opinion for it is further showing a comparing relationship. As I conclude I end up with the same questions that we asked ourselves sin class: who has the right to make this separation? Who is given this authority and why?