Different Children, Different Dreams - Sarah Milem

As I started to read this article I found myself a bit disgusted.  Here we live in a world where everyone is supposed to be equal and represented equally and that is not the case.  There is a slogan when it comes to advertising that you may have heard of “sex sells” but I thing after reading this article a new slogan she be said about advertising “white sells”.  And as horrible as that slogan is, it’s the truth.  And it’s not just in advertising  you see predominantly white people.   It is in movie and television shows.  Think of your favorite show that you watch.  Now think of how many white people there are compared to people of any other color.  Now do the same for your favorite.  And even if there are people of any other decent other than white, what kind of roles are they playing.  It is a type of society that we have created and that we can’t seem to break free from.  If you take a comedy movie and take out the leading actor that is white and replace him or her with someone that is of different race and put the white actor as the side kick, would people go see that movie?  Or a better question is would that movie even be made.  Is that something advertisers would want to put their name next to and promote?  Or would they be afraid of losing money?

One item I did have trouble with this article is that many of its examples came from 1980 to 1990.  I think if this author would go back and look at commercials from the last ten years he might find something different, especially in children commercials.  Now I might be being optimistic here, but I feel as though I have seen commercials in which children that are of color other than white, are being represented. 

Discussion questions:

1.       Do you think if the roles were reversed in movies that those movies would sell?

2.       Do you think that if you would look at recent commercials you would see a difference from even the last ten years in how racial groups are represented?