It’s rare – rare indeed – to see a mixed race couple pictured in US advertising. Or even as illustrations to media pieces – unless the news is actually about a mixed race couple. Just one of those things. I know we mutter about how much is done in the UK but the historical experiences really are very, very, different.
So a fun question here. Business Insider is definitely writing about the US. But has the picture editor (presumably a European) just not grasped that American experience? Picked something from Getty Images and thought no more about it? Or is there actually a change going on?
“It’s rare – rare indeed = to see a mixed race couple pictured in US advertising.”
I’m sorry, but from personal experience – nonsense. I don’t have stats but would say from my own observation that it’s not ‘rare’, but commonplace, and that mixed-race couples are routinely shown in advertising at significantly-higher rates than their actual proportion of the general population.
llater,
llamas
It’s rare – rare indeed – to see a mixed race couple pictured in US advertising. Or even as illustrations to media pieces – unless the news is actually about a mixed race couple.
Calling bullshit on that one.
These days its rare to see a white heterosexual couple with white children in advertising. If you watched advertising alone, without any knowledge of ‘Merica, you’d come to the conclusion that mixed race couples were in the majority, with a large percentage being gay couples.
It’s a variation of South Park’s Panderverse: “Put a chick in it. Make her gay!”
Hmm, 2 out of 2 who would know….maybe I should walk back on that then. Two decades back (last time I was there) it was odd.
Around 5% of the country’s total population was cohabiting couples who do not live with a child under 18, and around 29% of the total population are married couples who do not live with a child under 18, according to 2022 American Community Survey data
Whistling Dixie past the graveyard.
Deciding not to have kids, and instead deciding to just focus on our interests and our desires and what we want out of life has just given us a little bit more freedom, essentially, to take advantage of the world now, versus having to wait until our kids are grown or until we retire — if we retire,” Nicole Valdez, a 37-year-old publishing publicity manager and DINKWAD, previously told Business Insider.
The cruelest trick Clown World plays on women is persuading them they’d rather have a job than a little baby of their own.
Usually they realise when it’s too late.
On the bright side, there’s always surrogacy for those older oh-now-I-wannabe-a-moms, at least for those who can afford it…
Liz Kendall just had a baby at 50 via surrogacy and it didn’t seem to cause a great splash in the news.
It’s all sci-fi at the moment but artificial wombs will surely be a thing within the next century. That might shake the life-planning and demographics up a bit. Perhaps soon enough to make a difference to the pensions of the very young’uns alive right now.
Yeah, I’d walk that one back. Sitting here (in the US) with the TV on – first two commercials after reading your post featured mixed couples. Looking at my mail pile – I have junk mail from AARP with a black/white couple pictured on front. If anything we see them far in excess of their true occurrence.
Is this what passes for news in Clown world – couples without kids are better off financially?
The only thing missing is reporting on other people’s tweets about the issue. Yawn.
I was watching the Packers game last night. In the commercials, it seems that every other one featured a mix race something or other. According to the advertisers, the US demographics appear to be 50% black, 25% hispanic, 20% white and 5% east asian. South asian almost never appear.
Of course that is somewhat representative of football demographics, for the vast majority of the players on the field are black. The fan base for the Green Bay Packers is very white. Doesn’t seem to be much racism there because they are all out for the home team. All ignored because it doesn’t fit the Narrative™.
I wonder if Andrea Leadsom made a mistake back in ’16 – she said that being a Mum made her a better candidate than her opponent who was not. Then withdrew from her campaign to be PM after Cameron.
Not mums think life is clean : bans on khat, spice, psychoactives and smoking in prisons are clearly good (I’m referencing Theresa May obvs). At least Mums know that life is messy.
I wonder if Andrea Leadsom made a mistake back in ’16 – she said that being a Mum made her a better candidate than her opponent who was not
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity
Can’t remember the last time we saw a white man in a commercial without an accompanying black women or another guy. Very, very few spots include a straight-looking white man with a white female. After a couple years of this TV dissonance it is still mind-bending as it is so out of touch with reality out on the streets.
Liz Kendall just had a baby at 50 via surrogacy and it didn’t seem to cause a great splash in the news
Because Left are allowed to do anything
Which, is at best saying “Liz Kendall paid some much younger woman who still had fresh eggs every month, money to have a baby for her, using her husband’s sperm”. The only contribution from Liz Kendall (whoever she is), being some wonga.
As for American TV, never mind the commercials (which I haven’t seen for decades since giving up broadcast TV and it’s mandatory BBC tax), places like Amazon and Disney seem to have the problem identified by South Park, where every TV show is ruined by weak, effeminate men or “girl boss” women with Mary Sue abilities.
Netflix particularly seems to replace any ginger characters with a black female, but maybe that is simply a case of dyslexia on the part of the casting department.
Steve,
“The cruelest trick Clown World plays on women is persuading them they’d rather have a job than a little baby of their own.”
I’ve met very few women who really, actually, care that much about their jobs. Most women just want to be the hot girlboss from TV who has a large office, an assistant who brings them coffee, designer suits and they want to screw hot men in suits. The actual job, like monitoring product sector sales and tracking analytics, they don’t give a toss about. A few do. You meet the odd few who love building apps or transforming businesses, but most end up in some junior bureaucrat job that they hate.
Tim
I’d have to say I can’t recall the last time I saw a White couple in an advert unless they were same sex – indeed I’d expect any firm using such a couple to face boycotts across ‘X’ at a minimum , Eve. Though such a campaign would probably yield significant financial dividends..
Steve
It will be interesting to see if this level of female
Decadence is permitted under Hamas rule- the mullahs aren’t big on allowing women any say in it from recollection. That said I am sure that if we keep spending every penny of the defence budget and more on backing Ukraine it’ll
All be alright in the end after all Russia is far worse than Hamas.
I’ve always claimed to be largely colourblind but I am straining to see … Is this mixed race in the Megain sense?
“Liz Kendall (whoever she is)”
In short: Blairite who was going to be next leader of the Labour Party, until she wasn’t.
More or less in full: Watford Grammar School for Girls -> Cambridge -> IPPR think tank (specialism: child development/early years learning) -> Harriet Harman’s spad @DSS -> King’s Fund think tank (health) -> failed to get selected for Tony Benn’s seat on his retirement -> Patricia Hewitt’s spad @ DTI then Department of Health (worked on smoking ban) -> Director of Ambulance Services Network -> Labour MP -> various shadow ministerial appointments under Miliband -> bigged up as next leader of Labour party -> finished last in Labour leadership election with 4.5% of the vote -> backbench exile under Corbyn, became a TV talking head instead -> return to shadow frontbench under Starmer, currently Work and Pensions (on maternity leave).
For all that, she’s possibly most famous for dating the comedian Greg Davies for many years. They broke up in 2015, no idea who she’s with now. The press coverage there’s been of her surrogacy, mostly sympathetic stuff about her IVF, miscarriages and menopause, assiduously refers to “her partner” – no indication even of the gender, let alone marital status.
Netflix particularly seems to replace any ginger characters with a black female, but maybe that is simply a case of dyslexia on the part of the casting department.
Thank you John, this has had me chuckling away for a while now 😉
@John
That will make the inevitable woke reboot of Harry Potter interesting to say the least. Will J. K. Rowling object to the movie Replacement Theory like she has the trans issue?
Mercians only just discovering DINKYs? It was such a commonplace over here there was a radio sitcom about it, back when they had good writers.
Going back to the Seventies, my upper-middle class cousin but more like uncle in age difference had two very attractive teenage daughters. One took up with a well-known soccer player and the other with a well-known tennis player. The soccer player was charming enough but he had friends, which made the relationship impossible. Individually a person of another race may be charming enough, but she or he has friends, which generally makes the relationship impossible. She or he won’t like your friends any better.
I think I’ve know of one “mixed race” couple in 40 odd years, and that was a guy I worked with about ten years ago. I never actually met his wife but somebody told me she was of dusky hue (he was not a particularly close colleague BTW).
These days I keep a sort of running log when out and about. The delta between the real world and the Alice in wonderland fantasy of advertising and MSM.
It’s jarring, to put it mildly.
If I ever did run into the oh so sophisticated, obviously successful, witty, charming black man with the ubiquitous smoking hot white woman on his arm, I’d probably shout “bingo!” or something.
But then, I avoid London like the plague.
Or should that be because I don’t want the plague?
Being the white half of a mixed race couple, can’t see it’s anything to get exited about. Certainly not important to us. Not even anything we think about. Certainly doesn’t define us. Being from totally different cultures is far more of a factor.
Very, very few spots include a straight-looking white man with a white female.
Au contraire there are quite a few. However they invariably involve the straight white man behaving like a complete imbecile. Strangely enough gay white men are always portrayed as mature adults.
Who could be directing these adverts? It’s a puzzler.
Bis,
Just as the overwhelming majority of non wiite people would spend at most 3 seconds a year even noticing their skin colour, let alone thinking about it, unless constantly reminded by either the racism/woke complex or the reaction to it.
Shortly after the martyrdom of St. George of Floyd commercials in the U.S. changed very dramatically. Couples who were non-white, mixed race & gay exploded as a percentage in advertising. It was so dramatic that pretty much everyone noticed, nobody I know cared particularly, but the change was obvious.
Ditto Bloke in Spain, but it’s probably better not to live in the UK.
This sort of idiocy feeds the “I can’t cope with 95% of the people I work with being white in a country where 95% of the population are white!!!1111!!ione!!!” nonsense.
Maybe 20 years ago Tim your statement was true, but things have changed with the Great Awokening. Now it’s the white people who are rare in adverts. Mixed race is most common, probably because featuring ads with only blacks in it will cause people to think the product is aimed only at them.
It’s happened in the last couple of years, but I don’t think any ads feature a couple of the same race any more.