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Edited on Fri Aug-28-09 03:03 PM by Igel
A few comments.
First, you can't know that the black man or white woman isn't Hispanic. Neither would be stereotypically Hispanic, esp. given demographics in the SW and, increasingly in the rest of the country, i.e., with a large admixture of "indio". Nonetheless, indio and Hispanic aren't synonyms, and most Latinos know about the diversity lurking under that rubric.
The US is not excluded from the race issue. You're simply deluded on that count. The ad is carefully constructed to be "background", precisely--and primarly--in N. America. The dominant 3 ethnicities in business: black, Asian, white. A bit more men than women. It's an artificial set of people, put together principally for sales, and slightly for political, reasons. Still, you don't want to exclude minorities since you don't want to be involved in a racial discussion. So you leave out the largest single group, white men, to make sure that as few disadvantaged groups are included as possible. White men, esp. educated white men, are trained to not need to see themselves in such things; the white woman counts for white men, although a white man could never count for white women.
Now, you're savvy to all this. These are the racial dynamics and race-based PR assumptions that rule in North America. Moreover, you know, setting aside your stereotyping of Hispanics, leaving out a large contingent of a population would be bad politics and bad business. Including *just* minor contingents is also bad politics and bad politics--have 3 people, a S. Asian, a Yup'ik Eskimo, a Hawaiian -- the ad becomes a parody of racial diversity, drawing attention inappropriately to the racial profiling that we expect and even demand in our media. Gotta have blacks and women, should have Latinos and Asians, and we get whites to cater to the racist whites who insist on seeing themselves represented.
But the ad should be worldwide, you say. Fine, let's see where that gets you. Put the ad in S. Africa. Oops, you've left out a very important group, the "coloreds" (which is the non-racist term for those of S. Asian ancestry, and doesn't apply to blacks--we need to value linguistic diversity, not just pre-approved racial diversity)--although you'd insist that we include that all important South African Latino population. How about putting it in Uruguay or Peru? Gee, you've left out the Guarani or the Quechua/Aymara entirely, how racist. In India, you'd leave out 99% of the population, making sure to include East Asians, whites, blacks and Latinos and representing, gee, maybe 0.5% of the population? How inclusive. In Qatar, you'd want that woman's hair covered, out of respect for local sensitivities. In China, you'd have to wonder why whites and blacks and Latinos are there at all--unless, of course, they're deemed superior to natives. That happens, but do we want to play to attitudes that are the legacy of colonialism? Nah.
Now, let's flip it a different way. An ad campaign should be worldwide. Fine. But not every company is HQed in the US. So you're a Pakistani company, and you have an ad in the US that only shows the diversity that is Pakistan--Pakhtun and Punjabi, Sindi and Baloch. Um, not diverse at all by American standards. It's tone deaf, and leaves out blacks and Asians and Latinos. They're hurt--they don't feel respected, they don't see themselves validated, they're excluded. Local sensibilities *need* to be included.
So 'worldwide' has to be a one-way street, isn't it? You've really left no other choice.
You see, other countries are apparently vain, you've left no doubt about that. And you've left no doubt that they've vain because they don't adopt as background precisely and uniquely the racial distributions and politics of the USA--the ad should include Latinos to represent the local demographics, but should be worldwide (so "local" and "worldwide" default to "American"). So Poland--has to be like the US. Pakistan--has to be like the US. After all, for the majority indigenous populations to be reflected in the ads, and not be like us, well, that's just vanity on their part. They're not nearly as important in their own countries as we, the humble Americans, should be. Pakistan has virtually no blacks and very few Asians and Latinos, but dammit, the indigenous populations shouldn't see themselves reflected. Why? Because we Americans need to see ourselves in ads in their countries.
It gives "ugly American" an entirely new dimension. Well, no. It's an old dimension. 1960s and before, when all the world was white and middle-class or, well, backwards. Now all the world as to be diverse in American terms or be, well, backwards.
Then we have the wonderfully enlightened word "honkies", as though that adds any information at all.
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