Mixed race couples on tv ads **Mod Warning in Post #556**

AndrewJRenko

Should we have a quota system to ensure accurate representation of people of different ethnicities in adverts and the media in general?

NCS

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120772999#Comment_120772999

As I posted earlier - it should at least reflect the demographic breakdown of people applying for those roles, same as any other line of employment.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120773195#Comment_120773195

That approach tends to perpetuate inequality, where people don’t apply because they don’t have the education or the confidence or the culture or whatever.

standardg60

...

NCS

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120775534#Comment_120775534

Aside from that argument being somewhat bigoted in itself, if the breakdown of those seen on-screen differs significantly from the pool of actors applying for the roles then someone somewhere is deciding against those unsuccessful applicants purely based on their visible ethnicity, in which case racism is alive and well and arguably open to legal challenge. What's darkly amusing is that few of these advertisers are brave enough to portray fully minority-ethnic families, choosing instead the pragmatic - however uncommon - mixed-race family. It's a cynical old world...

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120776516#Comment_120776516

Actors are routinely cast for their physical conformity to the characteristics of the role involved; taking gender, ethnicity, age, etc into account in casting decisions is completely standard, and there's an express exception in the employment equality legislation to allow for this. It's absurd to suggest that the gender, age or ethnic composition of actors who are successful in auditions should correspond to that of actors at large, or of actors who audition.

This isn't hard to grasp. Advertisers want diversity in their ads, and they have no particular reason to want a representation of different groups in proportion to their representation in society. So this may be one of the few areas where candidates from a minority background are actually advantaged. But don't worry about it; they'll suffer more than enough disadvantage in other ways.

There's nothing sinister going on here — or, at any rate, nothing more sinister than goes on systematically in advertising. Advertising isn't remotely concerned with presenting a real image of the world; it's concerned with presenting an attractive image of the world, and associating their products with attractive societal characteristics. And, the attitudes of a few of the posters in this thread notwithstanding, more people are attracted by the idea of a happy multiracial society than are repelled by it, so advertising tends to evoke a happy multiracial society.

It does this for the same reason that it depicts people having a good time, enjoying their lives, etc far more than it depicts people who are bored, alienated and miserable and can do nothing about it. Neither depiction is an accurate representation of reality, but if you're not bothered by an unrealistically happy representation of society then it's absurd, or worse, to be bothered by the depiction of an unrealistically diverse representation of society.

RobbieTheRobber

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120776516#Comment_120776516

"That argument being somewhat bigoted in itself"

I'm going to be honest I haven't a clue what this sentence means in this context and I understand the individual meaning of all the words,

Who was it bigoted against, how was it bigoted?

Is it bigoted to ask why something is bigoted?

Are you saying that shortlisting actors based on certain qualities that make them suitable for a role as defined in a script is racism?

There are a lot more multi ethnic families than you realise in Ireland, not all non Irish ethnicities in this country are non white.

If too many people see these uncommon family types on tv we will probably start devolving or something so wont someone please think of the human species.

NCS

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120776666#Comment_120776666

There's a vast difference between making casting decisions for context-specific roles (soaps, films, whatever) and for generic advertising in which very little context and background is provided. If the requirement is for a dozen actors to be portrayed in a 30 second montage advertising a refreshing can of Sprunt, there is no reason why this should not approximate to the demography of the applicant pool. No one should be at a disadvantage purely due to their ethnicity.

NCS

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120776718#Comment_120776718

Your comment "That approach tends to perpetuate inequality, where people don’t apply because they don’t have the education or the confidence or the culture or whatever" implies that people of minority ethnicity are lacking in all three respects.

There may be many multi-ethnic family situations in Ireland, but it is unarguable that they are a minority. And, given that Chinese people have been settling in Ireland since the 1950s, why are they rarely represented in Irish advertising? It's not all about white people missing out.

Arthur Pants

Has anyone ever tried a Nogger Black ice cream?

RobbieTheRobber

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120776791#Comment_120776791

🤣🤣

Its not my comment.

The comment implies nothing about ethnicity. That is entirely your reading.

Why don't I believe that you care about equality of opportunity for people of Chinese ethnicity in advertising.

Annasopra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120766090#Comment_120766090

Genuinely worried for some people that they are outraged at seeing a black person on tv

NCS

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120776992#Comment_120776992

I care about equality of opportunity full stop. And I question if this is the case in Irish advertising given that the particular absence of Chinese or other Asian actors might well be a symptom of racism in casting as well as the observed over-representation of African ethnicity. Don't be projecting any other considerations on to my argument because that is where it begins and ends.

Geuze

I wonder on TV in Nigeria, are there people of Celtic origin in adverts?

TomTomTim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120777175#Comment_120777175

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/11/1122286865/nigeria-is-banning-foreign-actors-and-models-from-its-ads-as-of-oct-1

If this happened here, it would be "white supremacy" or some nonsense.

DeadHand

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120777060#Comment_120777060

I'm not outraged in the least.

I simply think it a blatant, stupid trend in Irish media in service to current dogmas.

I've rewatched The Wire several times and I'm a fan of the NFL. If black people on TV upset me, I'm mistreating myself horribly.

GNWoodd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120777060#Comment_120777060

It’s not A black person . It’s wall to wall black persons !!

and if it isn’t black people it’s tainted love rugby supporters .

niallpatrick

I can't grow a proper moustache, imagine my disappointment since swapping over to McCains bought from the co-op I can't even grow a handle bar moustache or find as'sless leather chaps that fit

nachouser

I'm grand with mixed race couples on TV, but given how few black lads there are in the country I only want to be able to see his hand onscreen. Or maybe a bit of an ear.

hayrabit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120778223#Comment_120778223

😁 😁 😁

lol , thatta good one !

:)

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120776791#Comment_120776791

You seem confused about the difference between ‘and’ and ‘or’. Where did you get your “all three aspects” from?

Recognising low representation of minority groups isn’t in the slightest bit bigoted. Quite the opposite, failure to recognise low representation and associated causes is bigoted.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120776755#Comment_120776755

From the advertiser's point of view, there is no reason why the ad should give an approximate representation of the applicant pool when it can give a representation of a happy multiethnic society instead. It's precisely because there is no context or background (and often little or no dialogue) that the physical appearance of the actors becomes important; it's virtually the only about the actors thing that can be used to communicate the impression the advertiser wishes to create. And the only reason they're in the ad at all is to create the impression the advertiser wishes to create, so their appearance is not just a relevant factor in casting; it's pretty much the only relevant factor.

What is just as distorted, if not more distorted, in the magical world of advertisingland is the age makeup of the population. About one in six of the population is aged over 65, but you rarely see them in beer ads or car ads or, indeed, ads for most consumer goods other than those specifically targeted at the elderly. Yet we don't have threads complaining about age discrimination in advertising. Why are some people preoccupied with the ethnic makeup of advertisingland, but wholly indifferent to its other demographic characteristics?

pappyodaniel

Ok, 100 actors turn up for an audition, I'd wager that if I was a young black actor looking to play the young dad in a TV ad, I'd have. A 98% chance of getting the role regardless of who did the best audition.

mockler007

This absolutely pixxes me off, especially the sky ad, where she's clearly punching above her weight and 20 years older.

It not realistic, its quite rare. But all these ads are coping each other. Lidl has it right, where is same race couples. It's believable.

I've nothing against mixed race couples, but when ads make it look like the norm when it isn't. I just get annoyed at it.

I've nothing against other races in ads either.

I just hate virtue signalling

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120793247#Comment_120793247

Why would ads need to reflect “the norm”?

purifol0

You lot seem to be absolutely clueless to why this is happening, or why all corporate media has "gone woke". The answer is DEI & ESG.

"Diversity Equity Inclusion" & "Environmental Social Governance", is the consequence of whole heap of freshly created money "printed" by the Federal Reserve & handed to Larry Fink, CEO of the worlds biggest (multi-$Trillion) investment firm to disseminate. And since Larry has all this new money, he gets to decide who it goes to, and since he has a hard on for woke values, the more woke your company is, the more investor friendly it becomes.

Note that while its true corporations didn't seem to go woke until after the 2008 banking crisis, ESG was being pushed at the United Nations before that in 2004 to firms like Goldman Sachs.

The black guy, white woman couples is the "Diversity" part btw.

There is of course more to it than that, but as I don't want to get banned I'll leave it there.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120793376#Comment_120793376

How does the bould Larry get millions to firms advertising on RTE?

Ramasun

A lot of ads shown in Ireland are actually made for other markets and just dubbed with Irish accents.

And some of these ads are dubbed with regional accents which gives a false impression that everyone talks like that. Never mind the mixed race couples it's the culchiefication of the country by stealth that is truly insidious.

mockler007

True. But why wouldn't they, if youre selling s product, you want to sell it to the most amount of buyers. Bud light for example.

But these type of ads, by ad making companies are only try to virtue signal, this, in itself, stops me buying their product.,

Remember the sky ad when HD was starting to hit the market, how they made it look like our old TVs were basically terrible picture quality and the product they were selling us beforehand was terrible by their own admission?

It's this sort of shenanigans that will make me not spend money with that company.

Don't get me started on that laya healthcare ad with the dancing doctor. That ad literally made me go with a competitor as did those shouting Harvey Norman ads of the mid 2000s or the Gillette ad.

It's terrible marketing, just sell your products without the virtue signalling, which is recently rife between marketing companies.

purifol0

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120793384#Comment_120793384

Its the worlds biggest investment company Andy, they've been here awhile; this is from 2012

https://www.businesspost.ie/legacy/blackrock-now-managing-e200-billion-in-ireland/

And since then even 100% Irish owned companies have been wanting to go public to avail of the cheap cheap money. All it will cost them, is a bend of the knee, some new discriminatory hiring policies and a whole bunch of virtue signalling.