Pascal Blanchard continues his foray into advertising’s portrayal of the black image
In November 2002, a major nationwide press and television campaign was launched for the new Egg visa card. The concept was simple enough: the new card would break away from traditional cards to offer consumers the opportunity to earn money while spending, with 1% of their total expenditure being reimbursed. The advertising agency chose to illustrate the concept with various more or less generally accepted « myths ». Of course one of these myths is particularly visible « Myth Number 9 » is that « Blacks are well-hung ». This doesn’t go unnoticed, which obviously is their intention. Furthermore, the TV ad shows a dwarf in front of height gauge eating soup that is « supposed to » make him grow, while the press ad has a black man sunbathing on a beach, wearing very skimpy swimming trunks. He « must » necessarily be well hung. It’s the savage and the freak, just like the human zoos. Deformation of the body, social exclusion, racial difference, abnormality, etc. constitute the essence of the physical standards of difference. We’re even allowed to laugh about it, since it’s in the second degree. And in fact « Second degree » is how the editors of France’s left-wing daily, Libération describe the ads in their reply in the 9-10 October weekend edition to two letters to the editor from readers who found it unacceptable that a paper with its kind of « moral code » run such an ad.
Yet again this advertisement demonstrates advertising’s tendency to stereotyping. Black people are still, after all this time mere bodies that are only good for dancing, and making war or love. The black body has always been placed at the limit of the extreme powerful bodies, different bodies, dangerous bodies. The savage to be colonised. Thus, the black body also represents beauty, strength, force and unbridled sex – that is therefore long, immense, endless, breaking taboo, a reminder of the forbidden. To couple with a mere body is to humiliate white men. It’s an admission of their inferiority. Hence the need to stigmatise the act: women who like black men like well-hung men. Such women come under two categories they are part prostitute, part animal. Nevertheless, this kind of reasoning is more the exception than the rule in the advertising world, both in terms of explicit and graphic images (with the exception of an advertisement dating from 1971 that we shall discuss in more detail later). In fact, other than a few American advertisements (promotional material), specialised sexual advertisements, this is the only case of a mainstream brand playing on this kind of image. Particularly given that it is both explicit and humorous.
The advertisement features a well-oiled black body lying on a background of pristine white sand. There are four identifiable red objects (colour of the forbidden) a sunscreen, a glass of alcohol, sunglasses and … G-string trunks. But it’s the body we see. The skin is in stark contrast with the neutral background, it glistens dark with oil. The body has a muscular power worthy of fetish and the pose is aggressive it possesses all the traits of a Negro … except for the small genitals. Therefore, it cannot possibly be black myth number 9 comes crashing to the ground! Our entire system of codes will have to be reviewed. But, hang on, let’s not panic here. This is a myth. Since the dawn of time black people have been seen as an object of desire – the forbidden fruit. Often soul-less and faceless (as in this advertisement), they are reduced to a simple body. This sexualised, overly aesthetical vision of the other calls on primitive social compulsions – he’s black, black’s evil, black’s deformed. Black men’s genitals aren’t meant for love and procreation but rather to destroy the white woman’s purity. This belief is associated with animals, with original sin and the ultimate forbidden fruit. To some extent, by having small genitals, black men could almost be « human ». Yes to black virility, no to black authority, yes to the power of the black body but beware of touching it!
Has Egg dared the unthinkable? Hardly! Back in 1971 TBWA wrote an ad for the Prisunic chain of supermarkets that followed similar lines. They used a light background, a black body, red underpants, a hidden face and a slogan (indicating an identifiable shape) that read « no, they’re underpants ». What shocked most at the time was the black model. Today, the size of his genitals shocks most. With a little effort, it’ll only take advertising 30 years to progress from the body to the brain and they’ll feed up myth number 10: « blacks are as good as whites ». As if that’s likely to happen!!
///Article N° : 5657
