There is a long history of “branding” ethnicity in the United States, as Comaroff describes in this weeks readings. The example that comes to mind, stemming from several undergraduate history courses on American Indian history, is the branding of Native American ethnicity into some of the first advertising campaigns in the US. This continues today. Take a look in your cupboard or refrigerator and you are likely to find at least one Indian-themed item, whether its Calumet Baking Powder, Indian Head Corn Meal, Land O’Lakes Butter, or any number of other products in and outside the kitchen. From trade cards to Indian remedy pamphlets, in newspapers, product packaging and television commercials, Native Americans and their associated stereotypes have been used to sell products. Playing off of popular preconceptions about Indians, advertisers use Indians to make their products seem more traditional, more natural and wholesome, or more spiritually rooted than other products.
Barbarity and dirt are close allied—
The effects of soap on Lo will soon be seen.
In virtue’s path straight he will henceforth walk,
Find for his savage energies new scope;
Cease stealing, deep inter his tomahawk,
Through using Higgins German Laundry Soap.[1]
Representations of Indians in the media have ranged from the ruthless warrior to the Indian princess, the enlightened savage, the mystically spiritual Indian, and the Ecological Indian. Each comes with its own implications about the product being advertised. Early examples of ethno-branding can be seen in trade cards and advertisements throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. “Lo, the poor Indian” was one of the most popular versions of the ignoble savage; he appears in many publications and advertisements throughout the latter nineteenth century as a catchall representation of the listless, uneducated, poverty-stricken Indian. Lo appears in a late nineteenth century trade card for Higgins German Laundry Soap. Playing off the idea of the morally destitute ignoble savage, the advertiser, Charles Higgins, suggests that by clothing the Indians and giving them Higgins brand laundry soap to keep them clean, the “savages” will soon be on the path to redemption and the moral high ground. Charles Higgins boasts the effects of his laundry soap:
... Give him some clothes that will arouse his pride,
And give him soap wherewith to keep them clean:— Barbarity and dirt are close allied—
The effects of soap on Lo will soon be seen.
In virtue’s path straight he will henceforth walk,
Find for his savage energies new scope;
Cease stealing, deep inter his tomahawk,
Through using Higgins German Laundry Soap.[1]
The slogan “The only way to secure lasting peace” is featured on the image that accompanies the trade card poem (see picture below. The advertisement plays on the conception of Native Americans as dirty, dishonest, and violent people, while also suggesting that their brand of laundry soap is powerful enough to change the presupposed nature of Lo, and by association all other Indians. An Uncle Sam-like character, perhaps a nod to the paternalistic nature of the relationship between Indians and Whites, is depicted handing off a covered wagon filled to the brim with boxes of Higgins soap, as scantily clad Indian children look on in the foreground.
Figure 1. This illustration comes from a trade card for Higgins Laundry Soap. Trade cards were not as restricted in their representations of minorities as other forms of advertising, such as ads in newspapers and periodicals, so they show some of the most “graphic examples of racial and ethnic stereotypes being used as marketing tools."
In another example, the Sagwa Indian Medicine advertisement, there are upwards of fifteen separate pictorial representations of Indians within a four-page pamphlet. Such a saturation of Indian images in the advertisement serves to overtly reinforce the association between Indians and the naturalness of their product. In fact, the advertisers explicitly use the idea of Indians and traditional, natural remedies to ideologically separate themselves from industry and science just as the advertiser suggested, exclaiming “Remember, we are not doctors; we know nothing about compounding drugs or minerals.”
Figure 2. This Indian remedy pamphlet for “Sagwa Indian Medicine” uses the association of Native Americans with nature to make their product seem all-natural and pure.
The difference in these examples and the ones given by Comaroff is that the groups are branding themselves, rather than having their ethnicity commodified by an outside group. Theoretically. While this is a definite improvement from the above-mentioned state of affairs, giving the groups themselves more control over their image and how they choose to engage in the “identity economy,” there are still problems with identity/ethnic branding. As Comaroff points out, “ethnic incorporation rides on a process of homogenization and abstraction: the Zulu (or the Tswana or the San), for all their internal divisions, become one” (12). And this conflation of ethnic groups into one identity, whether national (“Scottish” branding), tribal, or otherwise, masks the “politics of dissent” between groups within the “group” that may result. Some may not agree with the way their ethnic identity is being used, some may not see the fruits of the benefits of branding when they aren’t equally shared among the members, yet some will feel an increased attachment to their ethnic identity through such enterprises (13). Economic ties to ethnicity bring up questions of who belongs to “the group” (blood-quantums, continuing the Native American example), the “incorporation of identity” (67), as well as intellectual property rights and use even among members of the group. Does inclusion in the “the group” make it okay to commodify one’s own culture?
[1] Charles S. Higgins, “The only way to secure lasting peace,” Higgins Soap advertisement, (c. 1870) American Broadsides and Ephemera Series I, Image no. 29448, http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:ABEA&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=10F455A6842E05C8&svc_dat=HistArchive:abeadoc&req_dat=0D0CB4F084AAC1B5 (accessed May 3, 2010).
No comments:
Post a Comment