This week, the third of a set of commercials for Summer's Eve Cleansing Wash (douche) were publicized via YouTube and other places. As with all three (which target women from various entho-cultural / social groups) this last one, which targeted African-American women, was what I like to call a 'race-fail.' See the video above for all three and commentary.
What is a race-fail? Essentially it is when someone, or in this case a company, tries to portray / celebrate diversity and ends up reproducing a hot mess of racial stereotypes. In their quest to not only to be inclusive and also to extend their sales demographics they usually end up insulting the group they are trying to target, and also showing how clueless they are about other cultures outside of their own. But....
Are they (Summers Eve) racist? Are the above video commercials, 'racist'? I personally do not think so because I do not thing that the creative / marketing / advertising team were intentionally trying to do harm. Ass-out ignorant? Hell Yeah. Trying to stir up controversy? Hell yeah. By using sexual and racial stereotypes? Fuck yeah.
After all, who in their right mind, outside of a company that has made it clear that they have no desire to market their products to certain groups, would purposefully spend hundreds of thousands on creating an insulting commercial? Outside of a campaign commercial for a GOP candidate, that is.
No, what the above represents is that there are quite a number of people who think that, a) Latina and Black women really talk in spanglish or street-ebonics or whatever mess. That we, as women of colour are essentially all like the B-grade actors we see in bad movies about the 'hood. Or, b) that the controversy that has arisen from these commercials will help the company actually sell these sanitary products to women.
Not only did the creative team behind these commercials blatantly perpetrate racial stereotypes, but they ( perhaps unwittingly - I don't know) also perpetrated another stereotype that unfortunately, exists about women of colour, specifically Latina and Black women - that we are sexually promiscuous and because of that, we really need to keep our cooch(es) clean.
I'm too lazy to cite references, but there has always been this belief that not only are Latina and Black women 'easy' but we are 'dirtier' down in 'dem southern regions. I'm sure I've shared this story before but when I was much, much younger, I had a white boyfriend tell me that a (white, male) friend of his warned him against dating me because all Black women carried syphilis. And he actually believed it! I'm sure this belief hearkens back to the Slave-era when the perpetration of myths kept the 'races' from mingling. The fear of the 'other' was very useful for making sure that gene pools were kept pure.
I really do not want to spend too much time disseminating Summers Eve's decision to create these commercials, as I am more interested in the reaction, and what can be done to eradicate the inundation of fuckery against Black women and our bodies.
I recently wrote about the Psychology Today debacle and I recently heard that the author of that 'report' was fired, thanks to the online outrage. But you know what? While people are not only upset and are willing to send in their complaints about offensive articles, commercials, movie and film portrayals, why do they keep happening?
It shouldn't have to come to us kicking up a fuss and threatening to boycott or whatever, but honestly, I'm surprised at the visceral reaction to the Psychology Today piece......well surprised at the result. If a company doesn't care enough to think about how not only Black women might feel to be debased in a public forum before an article or commercial goes live, why are they so quick to react after? To me, this is even more insulting, as there was no thought process about how people would react at all when they create commercials, or publish online articles.
We are not even worth the thought.
Most of the time when we do stir up the dust, we are not as fortunate as getting Satoshi Kanazawa fired. There are still instances where we are told that we are not only being too sensitive and spending too much time on whatever insult, but that we 'need to let it go' or we will be deemed unattractive to others.
Nobody will 'take us seriously'........something that has always confused me a bit - so I am much more likeable if I lay down, turn over and let you fuck me in the ass? (pardon the expression). So while we have some pull, I wonder if because there are some who would rather keep their opinions to themselves, we are not doing enough.
I do not believe that while great strides have been made, racism will not be eradicated in my lifetime. There is too many people who benefit from it. In relation to this particular blog post, there are too many people who benefit from the social hierarchy that dictates that White, able-bodied, heterosexual women are on the top and the rest of us are forced to eat the scraps. Some of us WOC's have internalized this, some of us have begrudgingly accepted this and some, like myself, will not and never will.
Okay, time to stop rambling. I will say that offensive commercials like the above will continue until we all put enough pressure ( which means screaming and shouting from the rooftops) on advertisers and the like to at least think twice before coming up with these 'diversity' campaigns. Yes, we will be hated, we will be told to 'stop whining' but if we do not care enough about our representation in the public sphere and choose to complain to our friends ( and online) but do not start doing something proactive, it will continue.
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