Uncle Ben has a Mac

Interesting visual essay/slideshow thing at Slate on the history of the racial advertising mascot, occasioned by the fact that Uncle Ben is now being portrayed as the CEO of his own company (complete with Mac). The examples are variously appalling, funny, or appallingly funny, though the commentary strikes me as a little overheated in spots-- it'd be nice if there was at least a bit of recognition that the use of a figure like Aunt Jemima or Uncle Ben in advertising signified not just servitude, but positive attributes having to do with food and the South such as warm hospitality and expertise in the kitchen. For those of us who believe that knowing how to make biscuits or fried chicken well is at least as much of an honorable skill as knowing how to make money sitting at a desk, it's hard to think of them solely as demeaning images.

Of course, if you look at all old advertising, everyone was caricatured -- the woman who didn't wear deodorand and couldn't get married ("Often a bridesmaid, never a bride" was the tag line for "Odor-O-No" brand), the tiny-waisted housewife cleaned the kitchen in pearls and high heels (though to be perfectly honest, my mom did this), Barney Fife made white policemen look silly, as did "Car 54, Where Are You," drunks were objects of humor, and the list goes on. The level of appeal was low on all fronts, not just on the racial front. Which is not to say I hope we go backwards -- I think a degree of refinement, sensitivity, and good taste is important at every level. I positively cringe at some of the stuff in that slide show, and I'm glad we've made strides.

As for Little Black Sambo, the story was one of cleverness, not of servitude.

And I agree with you, Mike G, that the image of Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben suggested good food and hospitality. My dad grew up in Florida, and started working in a hotel at age 10 (when his dad died), and he would always tell me that the African American cooks were the best cooks in town. No hotel could survive without them.

Also, I just attended a program last week at the IACP meeting on the train culture that was associated with both Chicaago and the Great Migration. It was taught by a group of African American women, two of whom had grandfathers and uncles who cooked and servied in the dining cars of the old railways. They spoke of hardship, yes, but they also spoke of great food, incredible pride taken in their work, and the lifting of families from poverty up to the middle class. It was a heroic era, and one that should be remembered, not denied.

The image of Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben, however genially they were presented, reinforced the notion that servitude was the proper place for African-Americans; this is not altered by the fact that many actual Black people rightfully took pride in the real work they did. Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben, for most of their histories, were seen by African-Americans as embarrassing stereotypes. If there were other images of Blacks in advertising in the generations before the civil rights movement, it might have been easier to believe that the utilization of these figures represented some sort of tribute to African-Americans, but I don't buy that. I'd argue that the same holds true for women, where advertising for so long perpetuated the concept that women would find personal fulfillment through their domestic duties (and through their roles as primary consumers for the household). For more on this, though, I'd recommend the works of Sherrie Inness, in her book Dinner Roles: American Women and Culinary Culture, or a collection of essays she edited called Kitchen Culture in America: Popular Representations of Food, Gender and Race. (One article in this collection is entitled: "'Now Then -- Who Said Biscuits?' The Black Woman Cook as Fetish in American Advertising, 1905-1953.") The writings here can get a bit strident and are somewhat repetitive, but they're worth looking at if you're interested in this subject.

Well, to be honest, I wasn't speaking of what they represented when they first came out. As I mentioned, everyone was fair game back then. I was talking about today and how we react to it.

Sort of like Yankee Doodle and the American Revolution. The song was written by the British to mock Americans -- we were such barbarians, and we thought that simply sticking a feather in our hats made us dandies. But the Americans picked it up and turned it into a point of pride. By the time the war was over, the British hated the song, feeling it had been turned back against them. (As a related point of interest, one-fifth of the Revolutionary Army was African American. It was the country's most integrated army until World War II.)

So no, I didn't think the original image was all about warm fuzzies. I just thought that it could be, like Yankee Doodle, turned into a reminder of something that should be remembered -- like having a tattoo from a concentration camp.

Cynthia wrote:Which is not to say I hope we go backwards -- I think a degree of refinement, sensitivity, and good taste is important at every level.

Yes, I'd say "refinement, sensitivity, and good taste" are hallmarks of contemporary advertising.

Aaron Deacon wrote:
Yes, I'd say "refinement, sensitivity, and good taste" are hallmarks of contemporary advertising.

Good point. Most advertising is now uncreative trash. But society has become less accepting of racial stereotypes, and that's what I had in mind. The only stereotypes I see today in advertising are that all parents are dumber than their kids, and most relationships are built on lying or insults. Of course, those are also the premises of most of our sitcoms.

On movie sites this debate comes up about characters like Charlie Chan all the time. On the one hand, he's intelligent, he's a figure of authority, he solves the crimes and saves the day, he's a family man-- an admirable role model and exemplar of his race.

But on the other hand, he's a Swedish guy squinting his eyes and talking sing-song. I can see how that would kinda bug you, if that was the only (supposed) example of your people on screen.

So. Aunt Jemima. For me the thing is, the place in society can be demeaning yet the work can be honorable and creative-- as black jazz guys who started playing in brothels and ended their lives playing at the White House demonstrate. (Insert joke about whether that was actually progress.) I honor Southern cooking, I honor the black women who made creative and excellent work out of the limited options given them-- and so even if Aunt Jemima was meant in the most stereotypical way, let's remember the women who made a human figure of achievement out of the stereotype, and to my mind changed what it stood for.

If there were other images of Blacks in advertising in the generations before the civil rights movement, it might have been easier to believe that the utilization of these figures represented some sort of tribute to African-Americans, but I don't buy that.

And you are right, ToniG, not to. What is disturbing about these images, as you indicate, is not only that they were stereotypes per se, but that they were the only images of African-Americans that could be found anywhere in American mass-media advertising up to the civil-rights movement, with the possible exception of railway porters before the onset of airline travel. This perception is supported by various quantitative studies, which are best summarized in Marilyn Kern-Foxworth's Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, and Rastus: Blacks in Advertising (Westport, 1994). African-Americans simply did not exist as fathers, mothers, even children, or in any normal capacity as a consumer in mass-market advertising . When an African American finally did appear in a neutral role (in an ad for New York Telephone Company) in 1963 it was treated as headline news.

t'd be nice if there was at least a bit of recognition that the use of a figure like Aunt Jemima or Uncle Ben in advertising signified not just servitude, but positive attributes having to do with food and the South such as warm hospitality and expertise in the kitchen.

There was an exhibit at the DuSable a few years ago (maybe 2001?) that made this point, at least in passing.

I hadn't thought about Aunt Jemima or Uncle Ben in a while, but I saw an exhibit at the Studio Museum in Harlem in early March of this year. The exhibit was on comics from Africa, and it surprised me how many of the characters in the current popular comics from across the continent resemble Aunt Jemima. The comics made me realize how important context (e.g. political, racial climate) is to the meaning of these images, that the exaggerated features and general aesthetic of advertising mascots and characters like Little Black Sambo came to signify what they signified in the 19th and 20th centuries because of larger racial conceptions.

In terms of racial advertising and packaging of food, I wish I had taken a picture of a type of boxed cookie sold in Spain called "Filipinos." I was so surprised by the name. I tried to imagine being offered one of those cookies: "Would you like to have a Filipino?" "Um...no thanks...I just ate a bunch of Filipinos for lunch..." I'm pretty sure that were no representations of people on the packaging, but I can't otherwise recall the design of the box.