ELP

I’ve chosen to look at these two advertisements. The Co-operative advert on the left, which is more recent, and the Alcoa Aluminium advert on the right, which is older. These two ads both discriminate against women and stereotype them quite heavily. The one on the right highlights how women are seen to be weak and it should be amazing that a woman at this time could open a lid. Which also heavily implies that she would be in the kitchen and cooking using this bottle. That also links to the ad on the left where it implies the daughter in the family would be doing all the cooking and washing as she is the woman in the family along with the mother. It is also saying how she should be treated for this, which in turn makes it seem as if it is a job rather than if it is a chore. The slogan be a good egg also shows how that should be morally acceptable and people should be expected to do this. In some countries, women are still made to only stay at home mothers and do the washing and cleaning, it was only recently that females were allowed to attend football matches in Iran. Which shows that even at this point in time this is still a prevalent issue.

I will be comparing these two ads for vegemite and marmite which are essentially Australian and British versions of each other.

In the Vegemite advertisement, the slogan for it is “tastes like Australia” this is in reference to it widely being known as a very Australian thing to eat and something that they like to enjoy quite a lot. The ad also plays on the side that Australians are proud of their country as in the red is says “Tastes like: punching a shark in the face during a surf comp,” this combines the Australian values of them being surfers and also incredibly cool when it comes to things like dangerous animals. Which would cause them to think better about their nation. This is also an event that actually happened during a surf competition, so is like an inside joke between themselves and the people who made the ad. People who are not aware of what the message could be about. It could be lost and go over their head. People from some cultures might view it as animal abuse ad be offended, for example, someone from LA, who are stereotypically quite socially active and considered ‘snowflakes’ might see the use of a shark being hurt to sell a product, when there is no need for a relation, as offensive and something that shouldn’t be allowed. Or so someone from a place where Shark is commonly eaten might assume that the product is some sort of Shark paste.

In the second advert, run in the U.K. They are advertising Marmite, which divides the nation as some people love it and some hate it. Which also appears at the bottom of the photo. They have also coupled it with quite a popular debate at the minute which is Brexit, shown by the “Hard Breakfast”, “Soft Breakfast”, “No Breakfast”. As this topic also divides the nation. Doing this is sure to get the ad publicity as at the moment in the U.K Brexit is the biggest topic on the news. People not from the U.K or not familiar with Brexit are unlikely to know what it is referring to in the photo, as they will also probably not know what Marmite is. The people who don’t understand the culture around Marmite might also see it as the advertising company taking a stance on Brexit rather than acknowledging that they divide people.

I don’t think that a text can ever fully represent a group, places are just too diverse to represent everyone. When you are trying to have a proper story you can’t include everyone especially in cases where it wouldn’t make sense to. You’re not going to be able to please everyone and someone will feel underrepresented. A text can get close to it if someone who has written it has experienced it, or in the case of crazy rich Asians may have lived like that. But if you try to include everyone, in the end, it seems like no one is actually represented.

I think you are allowed to represent a group if you have experienced the culture or are from that place. Like the Asian director and authour in Crazy Rich Asians, because they actually understand the culture and have grown up with it. It is not some sort of guess based off of stereotypes and other texts. It would also be more widely accepted as they could write things in that may be true to real life but if done by someone from another background would be deemed as racist by the community. However, even in doing this some people still aren’t going to be happy and not all people will feel like they identify with it. But at the end of the day, it’s only a text so I don’t really see why people get so worked up about it.