Gender in Advertising and the Color Line in Sports

This week we both move into a new area in our consideration of race, gender, and class in the media, as well two new media: advertising and sports broadcasting. First, read the following two articles from Facing Difference: "The Beauty Machine" (sec. 1.2) and "Color Blinded: Racial Bias in Network Television's Coverage of Professional Football Games." Consider the findings in both studies.

Before Thursday's class, please post your thoughts on one or both of the following: first, how do the authors' findings in "The Beauty Machine" relate to contemporary depictions of female beauty in entertainment media and advertising? Second, a good number of you, in your local TV news audits, noticed certain trends in the depiction of African-Americans on sportscasts; can we connect those trends to the authors' findings in the second article?

This past week, several stories have featured prominently in the national news media that involved high-profile, "celebrity" figures who are African American: rap artist Kanye West and tennis star Serena Williams. In both instances, there were lapses in what some might refer to as "polite" or civil behavior in public. For West, there was the interruption of teen country singer Taylor Swift as she accepted her VMA award; for Williams, there was the use of extreme profanity at an official who made a call she disputed at the U.S. Open. The clips involving Kayne West can be found at:

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1621529/20090914/west_kanye.jhtml

Embedded in the West incident (if not the one involving Williams), there are those who would suggest a racial subtext drives the media storyline: tough, uncouth urban black vs. dimunitive innocent white girl. Is there validity on any level to that view?

Presumed Innocent: Charles Stuart

Charles Stuart on respirator after being shot

Presumed Innocent: Charles Stuart
In 1990, Charles and Carol Stuart, an upper-middle class white couple were returning from a birthing class (Mrs. Stuart was expecting their first child) at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. That night, Carol Stuart died of gunshot wounds in the car that her husband said was invaded by an assailant when the couple were stopped at a traffic light. Police responded following Charles Stuart's frantic 9-1-1 call from his cellphone. His story: a black man had jumped into the car and shot his wife, fatally, while wounding him near fatally with several gunshots to the abdomen.

The atttack took place in the Mission Hill section of Boston, near Roxbury, a predominantly African-America section of the city. Law enforcement and the news media readily accepted Charles Stuart's version of that night's events. The city went on a massive manhunt for the killer, with police detaining dozens of young African-American men who fit the description. The news media did stories sympathetic to Charles Stuart, suggesting his was a "camelot" marriage; some television stories suggested that "if it could happen to them (the Stuarts), it could happen to anyone."

It was later proven that Stuart himself had staged his wife's murder, both for insurance money and the desire to be with another woman. He even enlisted the help of his brother, who shot Stuart himself to help cover the crime. Once Stuart was finally caught in a series of lies and arrested for his wife's murder, he committed suicide by jumping off Boston's Tobin Street Bridge.

Once the truth about Charles Stuart was finally revealed, the finger pointing began. Questions like "why were police so quick to accept his story?" and why did the news media almost "canonize" Charles Stuart so readily as a poor victim of a random crime? These are important questions and ones on which I would like to hear your ideas and insights.

The Henry Louis Gates Episode

In our first few discussions this semester, we've talked about how "what you see depends upon the seer." This was the major point behind the exercise we did in class this week involving two adult males--one Caucasian, the other African-American--involved in what by any definition would be considered "normal" (one was even a journalist!), but was misinterpreted by an observer who thought a violent act could be taking place). Most of you have no doubt read about a recent incident involving a Harvard professor who was mistakenly arrested by police after locking himself out of his own home. The account below is taken from Boston.com, the website of the Boston Globe:

Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation's pre-eminent African-American scholars, was arrested Thursday afternoon at his home by Cambridge police investigating a possible break-in. The incident raised concerns among some Harvard faculty that Gates was a victim of racial profiling.

Gates

Police arrived at Gates’s Ware Street home near Harvard Square at 12:44 p.m. to question him. Gates, director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard, had trouble unlocking his door after it became jammed.

He was booked for disorderly conduct after “exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior,” according to a police report. Gates accused the investigating officer of being a racist and told him he had "no idea who he was messing with,'' the report said.

Gates told the officer that he was being targeted because "I'm a black man in America.''

Friends of Gates said he was already in his home when police arrived. He showed his driver’s license and Harvard identification card, but was handcuffed and taken into police custody for several hours last Thursday, they said.

The police report said Gates was arrested after he yelled at the investigating officer repeatedly inside the residence then followed the officer outside, where Gates continued to upbraid him. "It was at that time that I informed Professor Gates that he was under arrest,'' the officer wrote in the report.

Ask yourself: was Henry Louis Gates a victim of the same kind of "everyday racism" (Essed's theory) as the African-American journalist who was at the center of the scenario we discussed in class?