Bell Hook

In Bell Hook’s essay “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance” there is the analysis of how whites desire a presence of Otherness. I'm not sure if I completely agree with the argument that white supremacy is dominant in advertising (“For it is the ever present reality of racist domination, of white supremacy, that renders problematic the desire of white people to have contact with the Other." (371)-- maybe it's just the wording of "white supremacy" that sounds so abhorrent-- though I do agree that whites dominate the advertising spectrum, I've never personally viewed another race in an ad and thought of it as white domination or a spectacle. Hook's analysis on how white people find comfort in the distance of an advertisement with the Other was interesting, but I still found it farfetched. Hook brought to light how potent and deep advertising runs in our culture and how we view Others through our cultural lens to interpret how an ad affects us (and society as a whole).

As an analysis of the posted picture.. this may not have a logo for a brand, but the female model, Gisele Bundchen, is one of the most popular models in the world. I wish I would have found this photo before I read Hook, and then looked at it after -- too bad things can't be unlearned so easily. But it's obviously supposed to be high fashion with some sort of twisted concept... The racial undertones are extremely evident, and the men in the picture are looked upon as Others more obviously than the simple presence of a black person in an ad for Target or H&M.

Though I don't totally agree with all of Hook's points, the view of Otherness is one that is kind of disappointing- I don't like to think that I get excited subconsciously when I see an ad with a different race because they are so different- it seems totally hypocritical to what we've learned about equality and whatnot. I also found it very daunting, because if what Hook says is factual and we think that way and we do commodify the Other, then it's just perpetuating steadily in the cultural ideology- not exactly what I want to be teaching my children.