|
|
Re: race in commercials
wilkr (wilkr@INDIANA.EDU)
Wed, 6 Dec 1995 09:01:16 -0500
Vivian's point is well taken. In global business, cultural diversity is
both an obstacle and a selling tool. To do a little shameless
self-advertising here, I have written quite a bit lately about the ways
that diversity is increasingly re-written within a uniform mass-mediated
code on a global scale (I even gave a paper on this at Odense University
in June this year!)
One major arena for the essentialization of difference within a
restricted code is feminine beauty - and here is the advertising - which
happens to be the topic of a book that is **just published**, on Beauty
pageants in 11 different cultures. The book is
Cohen, Colleen, Richard Wilk and Beverley Stoeltje
Beauty Queens on the Global Stage: Gender, Contests, and Power.
Routledge. ISBD 0-415-91153-2.
You might check with your local bookseller - it is available in Europe. I
would certainly appreciate any Anthro-L member's efforts to publicize the
book, mentioning it to bookstores, giving it as a Xmas present, buying
multiple copies as keepsakes, or assigning it in classes!
Rick Wilk
Richard Wilk Anthropology Dept.
812-855-8162 (voice) Indiana University
812-855-4358 (fax) Bloomington, IN 47405
|