Examples Of Interracial Relationships In Advertising

Interracial Relationships in Ads

Throughout everyday life we see the presence of gender and family, it maybe subconsciously, but we see it everyday. I have selected three television ads that relate to gender and family, and in these ads we also see other course concepts that Cohen has mentioned and talked about in her textbook. Besides gender and family I will use interracial relations and exogamy as two course concepts that I would like to relate to my three ads. When we think of gender it is not hard to automatically assume some one is biologically a male or a female. Gender, unlike sex, is a way in which we categorize ourselves based on our on thoughts. Cohen also states in the text that gender can also be influenced by family members and

We have seen changes to the household and to the family itself. In these three ads that I selected, we can tell how the definition of gender and family have changed. The perfect example is displayed in the tide to go commercial, two men were walking into the church to get married and one of their mothers stopped them in disgust, and said how dare you blemish the sanity of marriage. Because she was older most people would of thought she stopped them because she did not approve of them getting married because in her time gay marriage wasn’t acceptable. However, after the mother stopped them she pulled out a tide to go pen and wiped a stain off of one of the guy’s shirt, and then told them to carry on. This is a perfect example of how ads are trying to get people to see that not only is gay marriage becoming more and more acceptable, but that cultural norms are also changing and it is not always a bad thing. In this ad we can also see forms of exogamy, which is marriage outside of one’s group (Cohen 2015). Exogamy is mainly considered when talking about interracial relationships but gay marriage can also be a form of exogamy because historically it is not considered to be normal just like interracial relationships or

In both of these ads I believe the main reason why the company decided to emphasize these concepts is because as we look at our society, it is becoming more diverse and the ads are meant to let people know that it is okay to accept these changes. In the 2015 Volkswagen Tiguan commercial we see an African American dad taking his daughter and her date to prom. The daughter’s prom date is white and along the ride they both seemed a little nervous, the dad made hard turns forcing them the make contact with one another. I feel the ad incorporated that because we as a society too, feel uncomfortable at first when it comes to acting out of the norm, such as inter racial dating. When the dad looked in the mirror to see that they were happy, he was also happy, and to me the commercial is telling us that we may be uncomfortable at first with interracial relationships, but we should quickly adjust and do whatever makes us happy. These two teenagers who are practicing exogamy, are happy and though the traditional family is changing we should realize that it is more important to be happy then to be forced into something because it is considered