Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.

On My Blog Menu:

InstaPundit
USS Clueless
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Little Green Footballs
As the Apple Turns
Entropicana
Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
Red Letter Day
Eric S. Raymond
Tal G in Jerusalem
Secular Islam
Aziz Poonawalla
Corsair the Rational Pirate
.clue

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Monday, June 17, 2002
02:10 - "Real People" Whitewash http://www.apple.com/switch/ads	(top)
You know, that's worth an entry: Why aren't there any non-whites in the Apple "Real People" ads? There are three women and five men, all with Anglo-Judeo-Christian-Indo-European names you might find in a children's reading textbook in the 50s. Sure, they range from the geeky to the freaky, from the hip and stunning to the wild-eyed and the goofy. But they're all white-bread. I can think of a good number of possibilities for why this is. Let's go through the litany: Apple is racist all of a sudden. Nahh, I don't think so. They've had Seal and Barry White and George Clinton and all kinds of people from all walks of life doing their PR for years now. And forgive me for a little bit of gut-feeling, but it just doesn't feel like the company I know. Apple has carefully engineered the ads to employ the most visually appealing personalities they could find, to present in a bloc to the meat of their target demographic-- and they believe that such a demographic is most comfortable seeing unassuming white guys and ladies instead of black or Asian or Hispanic faces selling them lifestyle products. Hmm... could be, but that's awfully Machiavellian. I wonder what this means for potential "Real People" ads made for the Japanese or European or Latin American markets? Will they do new screenings of testimonials by local familiar faces? This lineup of eight people, chosen for the uniqueness of their stories and their presence on camera, used to contain a single black person and/or Asian person, etc. ...But to the ad people it looked too much like tokenism-- and they replaced the "token" players with white runners-up. Sort of a negative affirmative action, to stem accusations of tokenism-- these days just as regrettable a thing to be accused of as racism. Maybe Apple is trying to start a new backlash in advertising, calling for an end to the "Bobby, Pedro, and Lamar"-ism of cereal ads and candy-bar wrapper mascots. Maybe this is the first arrows-in-the-back harbinger of a new era in which political correctness in advertising will be seen as an anachronism-- because hey, this is America, and we don't need to fuss and putter about who thinks we're racist these days, do we? Certainly not by comparison to some. These eight people, by pure chance and the luck of the draw, happened to be the best qualified eight for the ads-- the ones with the best stories to tell and who looked best against a white backdrop. And Apple was unconcerned enough with political correctness that they didn't seek out "minority" candidates to insert artificially into the lineup, because they felt it wasn't necessary. Naturally, these possibilities all give me different levels of comfort, and I'm not sure which I think is the most likely. On a hunch, I'd say it's either #2 or #4... but I have no way of knowing. I wonder if any of the major pundits will pick up on this-- and if so, if there will be a stink raised?