Even though few companies can set out to be racist in their adverts deliberately, sometimes their feeble attempts at humor and subtle prejudice can quickly backfire (Terlutter 111). A good example of humor attempts gone wrong is the Twin Lotus toothpaste advertisement in Thailand in 1982. The main intention of the advert was to show people that one should not judge someone or something based on appearance. Since the company is making an advertisement for a black toothpaste, they use a black man as a nice person who gets put down despite his nice intentions.
The advert shows how the society is against the black person. It shows a young girl crying because her yellow balloon had stuck on a lamppost. Her cry is seen by a black man who goes up the pole to get her balloon back. The fact that the advert used a yellow balloon is another bad humor that suggests the man would run for the yellow thing thinking it was a banana. Despite helping the girl, the mother to the girl does not appreciate his actions, where she quickly grabs the girl away from him. He goes home and lies in a large toothbrush, where suddenly the advert turns into Twin Lotus Herbal paste, suggesting that one should not judge others because they offered a black toothpaste too.
The meaning of race that I read in this advertisement through decoding is that the black man in the society is expected to do a lot of work that usually goes unrewarded. The advert does not show a good picture when a man tries to help a little girl get her balloon back only to be shunned away by the mother. Someone can learn about the racial dynamics in America through this ad because it can show him or her how black people were seen in the society.
Work Cited
Terlutter, Ralf. Cutting Edge International Research. Wiesbaden: Gabler, 2010. Print.
