Juice15, hooks

“…can be manipulated by cultural strategies that offer Otherness as appeasement, particularly through commodification” (hooks 368). I feel that this quote sums up the reading from a marketing and advertising point of view. Today more and more others are taking up places in these advertisements while the thought of white, skinny blond girls are falling by the way side.

Our culture today was described as “the dull dish that is mainstream white culture” (hooks 366). This is why many advertisers are using the other and otherness in their advertisements. From the white culture seeing the other in advertisements pleasure can be found in the acknowledgment and enjoyment of seeing racial difference. When this is seen it is said to often bring unconscious fantasies about the other. Most of these fantasies relate to sex. This is used to let the white innocence be put behind and let people enter a new world of experience. Foucault made me feel that advertisers do this to try and let people find a more intense form of pleasure. This can be done by the visual of the advertisement of the text that might be on the advertisement. The whole idea of grabbing the viewer’s attention by using otherness and evoking some sort of emotional response is what I feel the advertisers are trying to accomplish with this.

From the other side this article mentioned how market surveys show how certain products consumed by other races fold out. These companies can then add more advertisements with that race in there to relate to them more. The example of Pepsi was used in the reading. A lot of clothing companies are turning to this as well as using a crossover of races to appeal to a broader audience. Overall I feel that is use of otherness is becoming more and more prominent and before too long will not be seen as something out of the ordinary.