Racial, Gender, and Other Stereotypes in Ads

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cial, Gender, Age and Other Stereotypes in Ads Stereotypes appear everywhere you look if you look at something and think about it hard enough. From commercials to billboards, from rice boxes, such as Uncle Ben’s Rice, to the new movie playing in the movie theatre, you will unfortunately find stereotypes. Many companies, however, when brought to their attention will remake an ad is they think it may be stereotyping a certain group of people who have potential to buy their products. There is a huge benefit in making over ads if they are stereotypical. The first appearance of Uncle Ben was in 1946. The box cover was a black man with a black bow tie looking off to his right. On his chest read Uncle Ben’s Converted Long Grain Rice. This ad was made by Converted Rice Inc. in Houston Texas in 1947. So you might be asking yourself, so what’s wrong with this ad? The main problem with the ad is that Ben doesn’t have a last name. This may seem like not a big deal to most people, but the lack of a last name seems like he is a slave on a plantation who has no last name. I find it degrading. Also, the Uncle Ben figure is wearing a bow tie which was common for servants and Pullman porters back in those times. The last thing I find wrong with this ad is that the company calls him Uncle Ben. They use an old black honorific, Uncle, instead of calling him Mr.. In my opinion, this alone makes the ad stereotypical to black people. The makeover of the Uncle Bens Rice I feel had a great impact. It showed that a black man could be the head of an office on the box of a product from a white company. I think this is a huge improvement from the stereotypical box that once was their product. The newer makeover is more appealing to a larger audience as well. Now, instead of it being stereotypical to blacks, it endorses them as being able to achieve
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