The Black Ban

World Around The Net ^ | January 5, 2015

[driftless2]

My wife didn't believe me when I told virtually every nationally-based ad had to have blacks in it. Finally, after paying attention, she agreed with me.

I wonder where all the Hispanic actors in those ads are. I rarely see any Hispanic-looking actors in those ads even though now they supposedly outnumber black Americans.

[Phillyred]

13% of the population and 100% of commercials.

[a fool in paradise]

I have seen an upturn in the number of women stunt drivers in car commercials.

[Verginius Rufus]

Sometimes there are ambiguous characters who might be Hispanic or Asian, or possibly non-Hispanic white.

There is a car windshield replacement company that runs a lot of ads (Starlite, I think it's called). The people from the company shown in the ads are always black (although the customers are sometimes white). Does that mean that it's a black-owned company entirely run by black people?

[driftless2]

When I was growing up the fifties and sixties, you virtually never saw any blacks or minorities in ads or tv shows. Certainly black people and other minorities bought many of the products sold on tv. It wasn't until almost the late sixties or early seventies that you saw somewhat proportional numbers of different American ethnicities.

Of course, that's all turned around now. I guess most companies fear lawsuits if they don't include blacks in their commercials. I'm wondering if Hispanics will start agitating for more representation?

[Verginius Rufus]

I've wondered if it's that they fear lawsuits, or shakedowns by Jesse Jackson, or just want to demonstrate how incredibly enlightened they are compared to the "typical white person."

Back at the time of the Clinton impeachment trial in 1999, AMC ran an old movie (ca. 1940) about the impeachment of Andrew Johnson which was very sympathetic to President Johnson. I watched part of it and noticed there appeared to be almost no black people in the movie--despite the fact that it was disagreement over how to deal with Reconstruction and the status of the recently-freed slaves that led to Johnson's impeachment.

[Verginius Rufus]

I said AMC but on reflection I think it was Ted Turner’s network, TCM.