Racial Stereotypes in Advertising

Stereotypes is “…a fixed, over generalized belief about a particular group or class of people.” Stereotypes have been found to exist in many different races, cultures or ethnic groups. Advertising agencies uses stereotyping to reach out to their target audiences. Although using other stereotypes (demographic, gender, age, etc.) is socially accepted by society, racial stereotyping walks the borderline in advertising. In the past, advertising was extremely racist and was almost accepted by society, but in modern times, that attitude has changed. There are still traces of this outdated mindset that focuses on clichés and stereotypes. Even though conditions have improved and people are more likely to criticize racism, inappropriate marketing strategies still have found their way into the public eye.

There are many racial stereotypes that society follows and advertisers use those stereotypes to develop a shorthand method of defining characters in ways that are easy for people to identify and categorize in their ads. What these stereotypes all have in common is that they reduce to a one-sided view of a group of people.

Here are some examples:

·         White People Don’t Have Rhythm

·         African Americans Are Good at Sports

·         All Asians Eat Rice

·         Hispanics Don’t Speak English Very Well or Not at All

·         Middle Easterners Hate America

·         White People Are All Racist

These stereotypes are judgments that assign negative qualities to other groups. But because society thinks some are funny these stereotypes tend to repeat and become normal. Repetition tends to normalize stereotypes, because repeating stereotypes validates and perpetuates them. Because stereotypes often contain a somewhat the truth (they may be characteristic of some or many members of a group) they are widely accepted as the truth.

Advertising today is more sensitive to issues of culture and gender than it once was, but the creation and common misconceptions about groups of people continues. Oversimplified and inaccurate portrayals have affected how we perceive one another, how we relate to one another and how we value ourselves.