Incorrect is in

Over the last year or two I have started noticing a new trend in advertising.
The second half of the 20th century is well known for the battles of civil rights/women's rights/gay rights/worker's rights/... movements fighting for equality. This has lead to a common agreement in the public sphere (as well as in legislation) that openly discriminating because of race, gender, sexuality is not acceptable. Many would argue that this climate of political correctness is only superficial, and that discrimination continues to thrive under the surface of media and advertising representations, in a more subtle (and perhaps more dangerous) hidden manner.
However, recently it seems that a shift has taken place in some advertising circles, and that being edgy and innovative, also means taking risks by daring to be openly 'politically incorrect'. If you look at all these ads together, there is a sense of 'they have had long enough to get over their hang ups, why not use them'

The first time this idea struck me was in London, 2006, where this Playstation campaign was displayed all over the tube stations and trains ›



I first took this simply as advertisers trying to tonuge-in-cheek cash in on the British culture of 'new laddism'. A phenomenon which started in the early 90s with magazines such as Loaded, FHM, and later in America Maxim, where men were told to be proud of watching football, drooling over pinups, and getting pissed with their mates. Seen by some researchers as a 'smokescreen for males who cannot take the rise of feminism' laddism is still very present in British society especially.

However, in the Netherlands, where I was living, laddism was not something I had noticed as a cultural trend. Which is why the 2006 Bavaria campaign seemed to mark a new era in advertising, where the Dutch, more than 10 year after the emergence of the hyped British lad, decided the time for 'political correctness' as a given was over, and the 'metrosexual' male was out.




According to some it was time for the 'übersexual'. Men who are 'all about ruggedness, confidence, masculinity and having an unselfish passion for causes and principles'. Though the creator of the term 'metrosexual', writer Mark Simpson, argues this is not so, and that the new trend was a PR stunt (Metrosexual war breaks out in Holland). Knowing the work of Kesselskramer, the designers of the ads, who usually do clever and trend setting work, I would have agreed with Mark Simpson that this was a one off, had it not been for other campaigns jumping on the same bandwagon.

For example this one in London the same year ›


In my opinion the campaigns are mainly tapping in to a change in attitude. However, they are of course also contributing to a celebration of this change, and thereby fueling it. Some years ago, I am pretty sure these campaigns would not have been allowed in the public space. So should women be worried about this return to 'masculine values'? Or should we say 'Fair enough, we have had the right to celebrate our femininity, they should be able to celebrate being men'?

Another trend in political incorrectness has to do with race. More specifically advertisements aimed at the white majority, with somewhat dubious racial representations. Again it feels like the same attitude is allowing these campaigns, which would most likely not have been seen some years ago, to emerge now.

Take for instance this one in Amsterdam, 2006 ›
The text says 'Palm - purebred beer' or 'Palm - pure breed beer' or 'Palm - pure race beer', as all these meaning can be derived from the 'puur rasbier' in the Dutch language. So if we look at the image of the blond horse and take the first 'purebred' meaning, the ad is innocent enough. However, as soon as we choose one of the other interpretations, it gets more tricky, and could be seen as quite a racist statement.

In Sydney this year this billboard struck me as quite racially problematic as well. It plays with stereotypes, and is supposed to be funny. You could even see it as opposite racism, because it ridicules the white fat boring couple, and glorifies the black beautiful superstar couple. Nevertheless, in a country where there are hardly any people of African decent, and where the aboriginals have been treated horrendously throughout history, and still today on average live 17 years less than white Australians, the question remains who are we laughing at? The product advertised is an online recruitment agency. The pun being that if you join, you will go from being average white dull unhealthy middle class to super sexy athletic black hip hop star.
The problem with this being the obvious and age old stereotype of the hypersexual (male and female) lazy negro, who's only skills are athletic or musical, and who lives a life of decadence and excess if given the chance, particularly in the present represented by the image of the gangsta rapper lifestyle.
The text on the billboard claims jokingly 'It could revolutionise who you are', playing on the global popularity of the African American hip hop star. But the fact that this is all an exaggerated joke, with the extra jest of '*results may vary', contributes further to the 'we' as the normal citizen, and the 'them' as the exaggerated exotic stereotype. We know what the poster claims can never be true, so the preposterousness of the suggestion is what makes it funny.


In another Australian advertisement for Cadbury chocolate something similar is happening. Though here it is not a joke in the same sense. A white Australian family (blue-eyed/blonde) have turned brown, supposedly from eating chocolate. The text reads 'Wouldn't it be nice to share the happiness!'. And they all look happily at the TV showing a slab of chocolate. At the bottom the slogan 'Pure Cadburyness'.

Again the representation is about white people turning into black people. Though the brown skin in the ad is maybe not meant to refer to people of other ethnic background, but simply to the colour of chocolate, it is pretty hard to ignore the association of Caucasians with brown skin as changing race. Again this change is seen as something positive. 'Wouldn't it be nice to share the happiness!', meaning eating chocolate will make us brown and happy. It seems this ad is going back in time to an age of golliwog dolls, where stereotyped Negroes would advertise things such as coffee, pancakes, rice, and chocolate. Or when chocolate covered marshmallows were still called 'Negro kisses' in Northern Europe (something Germany and Scandinavia changed a long time ago, but the Dutch only changed recently). Another historical stereotype is that of blacks seen as childlike, naive, irresponsible, and therefore not fully developed human beings. Known from the Sambo and Coon caricatures. There is a definite childlike naivety about the happiness of the brown characters of Pure Cadburyness.


It would be interesting to investigate what changes in society have led to this shift in advertising, if I am correct that is, and there is a new tendency for representations in public space to be less sensitive to political correctness, and instead use the tongue-in cheek political incorrectness as a tool. Is it damaging or should we lighten up? Is the commercial world just tapping into a changed climate in the public opinion, or is it creating it?

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