Advertising and Reality: Stereotype
Stereotypes are simplified, inaccurate conceptions or images that have become standardized and are widely held. A stereotype can idealize or demean the group it types. If a depiction of a group reflects reality, we do not consider that depiction a stereotype.
Stereotypes make it possible for us to form generalizations about a person or advertised character without requiring a great deal of information or evidence. The less time we have to process information, the more likely we are to rely on stereotypes in drawing conclusions. The less time television producers have to communicate a message, the more likely they are to rely on stereotypes.
For example, in a 30-second commercial, a writer cannot create three-dimensional characters but must instead deal in the shorthand of stereotypes. The Harried House-wife, the Bumbling Husband in the Kitchen, the Archetypal Clearance MBT Shoes Grandmother, and the Nosy Neighbor are stock characters in commercials whose type we recognize immediately. Consequently, the writer can introduce a limited number of cues about them in a few seconds and proceed to deliver the message through them because we fill in the appropriate characteristics for this type of character.
Often the stereotypes found in commercials are so ridiculous or so harmless that they provoke no protest. Mr. Whipple, the storekeeper who lurked behind the display cases waiting to ensnare shoppers for squeezing the Charmin, and Aunt Bluebell, who arrived at the homes of relatives with toilet paper hidden in her purse, were two such eccentrics. These characters were so implausible that if we identified with them at all, it was as comic foils.
By contrast, when a lazy, greasy, conniving thief in a sombrero and gun belt speaking in a parody of a Mexican dialect was chosen as the trade character for Frito’s corn chips, Hispanic groups protested. The Frito Bandito embodied and consequently rein-forced negative stereotypes about Latin Americans in general and Mexicans in particular. By drawing public attention to the stereotypes on which the Frito Bandito was based, the protest made it more difficult for the ads to use the stereotype to convey a commercial message. The protests also demonstrated that the Bandito offended a large, vocal group of potential customers, a result no advertiser desires. Consequently, the Frito Bandito disappeared from ads.
Stereotypes that are nearly universally held rarely draw protests because we are un-able to see them as stereotypes. For decades the public tolerated ads in which older individuals were portrayed as fools or comic foils. When the gray rights movement focused attention on these ads, the number MBT Shoes of ads decreased in which older characters’ seeming inability to hear, understand, or recall a product’s name provided an excuse for repetition of that name.
Stereotypes are powerful means of reinforcing societal attitudes about groups of people because the process of stereotyping involves the receiver in creating the message. When the negative attitude that is reinforced is about a large, politically and economically important group such as Hispanics, African Americans, women, or elders and is recognized by spokespersons for that group as destructive (messages, for example, that a woman’s life is fulfilled if her floors shine, that older persons are senile, or that Hispanics are lazy and dishonest), then protest will follow because representatives of the stereotyped group fear that the stereotype will reinforce undesirable role models and will perpetuate discrimination against the group. Some groups have used the media to change the way in which they are portrayed by the media, as we will show in Chapter
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