Kelsey Hippen
In the first advertisement, I see a few important ideologies at work. First, I see that the word “Chef� is written with a capital C. I recognize that “Chef� is the name of the product the advertisement promotes, but I wonder if there is a more important statement being made. Perhaps the “capital C Chef� communicates the dominance of the male role in the woman’s life. We see the same concept in Lorde’s writing—Lorde capitalizes the words “Color� and “Black� to draw our attention to our self-imposed norms. I think this same concept applies to “Chef�—we self-impose the dominance of the male in the woman’s life.
Also, the article says, “I’m giving my wife a Kenwood Chef.� If we interpret the article by concluding that men decide the role of the women in their lives, then we can support that conclusion by noting how the phrases “that’s what women are for� and “I’m giving my wife a Kenwood Chef� are connected. Perhaps we can assert that if the phrase about the man giving his wife a Chef was not included in the article, the message about male patriarchy would not be as strong.
In the second advertisement, I notice that the black woman is portrayed as an exotic animal, which is a trend we discussed in lecture. Although I do not entirely understand the reasoning behind this, I think that we can tie it to Riley’s “The Black Beauty Myth�. One of the messages within that article is that the white bourgeois American Dream has not only permeated into capitalism, but into black women’s body images as well. I think the way that the white bourgeois have been able to interpret black women through the lens of capitalism is by branding her as something “not us�, and therefore, “exotic�.