A new commercial for a brand of watch ends with gay clenches between two men and two women. While watching this image, a thought occurred to me: We now see gay pairings in television advertising, but we never encounter interracial couples. People of all races appear in commercials, and that situation constitutes a great improvement over what we saw on TV when I was young. But people still pair up by color, much like the centaurs in Fantasia.
Why?
2 comments:
I'm of mixed race Joe, Half Polish Jew, half West-Indian. I know the answer to your question. Let me help your other readers that you do very occasionally see mixed race couples in adverts on TV in the UK. But very occasionally.
Harry
We also have mixed race couples in our advertising in Quebec. We also have TV shows with mixed race couples. We even recently had a popular sitcom where mixed race couples was the main topic.
Before the 60's, Quebec population was very homogenous (strong majority of catholic from French origin) with the Anglophone population from British origin mostly concentrated in Montreal. The only black population we had was also concentrated in Montreal and mostly composed of Americans who fled the US before the 60's. After that, immigration kicked in and we now have the chance of living in one of the city with the greatest ethnic diversity in the world (competing with Toronto and Vancouver). Some schools in Montreal have more than 200 ethnic groups represented (we force immigrants to go to French schools). With all this diversity, it's not surprising that mixed couples are now a reality . Also historically, French people in America were always more open to "blending". We almost all have Indian (native) ancestors somewhere in our family tree. For example, my maternal grandmother was Métis (half white, half Native).
But there's still a lot of racism present (slowly fading away though). Mostly from the older population who remember the very homogenous Quebec of their childhood. It's not easy for them to adapt to this new reality.For us, it's a new phenomenon, we don't have the historical background of slavery and the civil right movement...
Normand Brathwaite is a well known entertainer (TV / radio show host and comedian) in Quebec. He was one of the first black comedian on our TV shows in the 70's. I heard him say in an interview that the only place where he encountered problems because he was married to a white woman was in the US. In some restaurants, they wouldn't serve him, he was looked at suspiciously and said he would feel the tension and discomfort that their presence would cause. He said he never had this problem elsewhere in Canada or in Europe.
Is it because mixed race couples are never visible in US medias that it causes such "unease", or is it because of that discomfort felt by some part of the population that media / advertising will never show you a mixed race couple on TV ?
Are the old memes of eugenics still floating around in some heads ?
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