coolbeans, hooks

In “Eating the Other”, bell hooks discusses the ways in which our culture and society makes use of the Other. One thing that bell hooks discusses that interested me was that the Other is often used in advertising and marketing. Hooks cites the example that market surveys revealed that black people buy more Pepsi than other soft drinks so suddenly more Pepsi commercials featured black people in them. He also states that fashion is another industry in which selling products involves exploiting otherness. After thinking about this, I have come to the realization that this is true. Every marketing campaign is targeted towards a certain target audience. Dolce & Gabbana ads usually speak to a more European audience because generally European people like to wear Dolce & Gabbana, whereas Ralph Lauren ads are usually more all-American because the target audience is the American public. In advertising, the Other or the image of the Other becomes commodified in order to sell something. Executives of media contribute to much of the exploitation of the Other in order to sell things. The phrase “sell out” has been coined to denote a person who has given in to the commodification process; one who has agreed to change his/her image in order to sell movies, records, books, etc… It is often common to hear people say something like “Ludacris is such a sell-out” in reference to rappers who have turned their music into “pop” music. The culture of rap started as an Other movement. It was a new a different form of music that was underground and not popular. Much of original rap spoke about topics such as racism, poverty, real issues, etc… Executive record labels want the artists that they pick up to make money for them and therefore the music has changed from its original intent into meaningless catchy rhymes that discuss how awesome the artist is, how many unique “whips” an artist has in his garage, how much money the artist has accumulated, etc…