[Moderating]
No good can come of a thread where there’s more discussion trying to figure out what the topic is, than of the topic itself. Lamar Mundane, if you can’t clarify this in your next post, Monday at the latest, I’m going to just close this.
I’m assuming the OP meant he never sees black and white couples in real life, but he sees commercials with them often.
Does that include Hispanic/[White/Black] marriages? It seems that no one bats an eye about white people being married to a person of Hispanic or Asian ethnicity on TV. It’s just the Black/White pairings that cause a fuss.
I don’t watch enough television to make a definitive statement, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Hispanic-Black or Black-Asian couple on the screen.
The advertisers are changing the demo of their ads to reflect the world. It’s a project they are on seemingly. It seems OK to me. But it’s a project.
There is an ad where a white guy gets into a car with a black family by accident and the black mom screams. It occurred to me that if you reverse the ethinicities it would be totally weird and not OK, for an advertiser today anyway. That’s why it’s a project.
That would be a good song lyric. Dylanesque
Maybe it sounds racist, but it seems like they’re so many bi-racial couples on TV now a days that it just feels forced.
I live in a mostly rural county (except for the Naval Air Station) that’s pretty right-wing politically, and I’m surprised how many interracial couples I see. It’s just not the sort of setting, here among the Amish, where I would have expected it.
Shortly, I’ll be seeing such a couple every day, when my daughter and son-in-law move in with us. And honestly, I’m glad this county seems to be the way that it is. I’d hate for them to have to put up with racist BS all the time.
I think I can parse the OP:
“I see a lot of interracial couples on TV ads. But I don’t any in real life. In fact, I hardly see any interracial friendships, let alone couples. The only interracial friendship I’ve ever seen is my own, my friendship with my black golfing buddy. What’s up with that?”
If Barack Obama and Halle Berry got married would they be a biracial and/or an interracial couple?
But I don’t see any in real life, that should say.
Why not? Given that Tiger Woods himself is biracial, I mean.
Really? Because Hispanic/Black couples were considered a cliche just a few years ago. The supposed theory was that studios would cast a black actor like Will Smith, Denzel Washington, Idris Elba, or Jamie Foxx in the lead. Then they’d want to give them a love interest. But they wouldn’t want to cast a black actress because they were worried that then the movie would be perceived as a “black” movie. And they wouldn’t want to cast a white actress because then the interracial relationship would overshadow the main plot. So they’d cast a hispanic actresses like Eva Mendes, Nadine Velazquez, Salma Hayek, or Rosario Dawson.
I think his point is that Woods’s children are triracial, having black, white, and Asian ancestry.
Heh, your user name reminded me of a nice animated short where an anthropomorphic cat and a dog get married. As the makers are Hispanic I do think that they also do point at their married condition as bi-racial by noticing how their marriage was a very lonely celebration. In Latin America there would be indeed more discrimination tossed at mixed couples.
Here’s the Plan - By Chilean Fernanda Frick (in English)
It has to be mentioned that being shunned by friends or family is not the focus of the short, in reality it is a very nice animation about how a couple can deal with their non-racial differences and succeed in life.
Fair enough. I meant in the context of this OP, which was trying to distinguish between an interracial black and white couple and a biracial black and white couple.
Good to hear! (Except, perhaps, for the lack of political diversity.)
The reason I suggested “city” to the OP was not because all rural areas are segregated; a city simply has a higher density of all kinds of people, so whatever he feels he is missing out on, he will see more of it there. But a rural area or small town could work, too.
I kind of agree with this when the actors are so poorly matched as to make it obvious they were cast because they were the right color.
Case in point, a commercial for (I think) a washing machine (or maybe detergent). Black wife and white husband are packing for a trip and daughter comes in with a big bundle of dirty clothes she needs to have washed at the last minute. There are too many things wrong with this commercial to list at the moment but the biggest thing is the husband, who sticks out like a sore thumb. He seems like such a stereotypical, “unhip old white guy” that I can hardly think of anything else when I see it.(Also, I want to kick the daughter’s annoying arse but that’s a topic for another thread.) I’m glad that the media is trying to reflect the changes in society but ferfucksake put a little effort into it or don’t do it at all.
I wouldn’t say forced, but rather, formulaic. I get the feeling that the casting person and producers are checking off boxes when they cast some of these commercials. White guy between 38-45? check. Black woman between 30-35? check.
Well, I was thinking television but that’s my fault for saying “Screen”. Serves me right for being poetic.
And I could even be (gasp) wrong about it. I don’t necessarily have my fingers on the pulse of American culture.
It all boils down to the fact that advertisers want to attract people, not alienate them. That is the prime directive, and good ads are constructed to make that happen. In that light, they need to tread the line that separates liberal inclusiveness and controversy. So, for example, I may feature a bi-racial couple in my commercial, but I make the woman a light-skinned beauty because research has shone that light-skinned Blacks are better received than their dark-skinned counterparts. Look at the Black women in a Victoria Secret catalog.
Another factor is the product you are selling. If it is a race specific product light hair straightener, then my commercial is going to be geared for the Black market. One for a new car would be race neutral.
Another factor is region. I may not air the same commercial that I air in Los Angeles in Confederate flag waving Dixie.