Stereotypes “make value judgments about the worth, taste, and morality of another culture, and in doing so they can influence our attitudes, behaviors, and actions toward members of that culture” (book source). This then influences us to perceive how people of certain races are supposed to look and act, causing the media to overlook the actual complexity of racial groups and present their audience with a simplified and flawed representation of that race. Racial stereotyping does not always provide negative connotations, but it can still be considered harmful due to the constant repetition of certain characteristics of a race that essentially naturalizes the stereotype and causes the public to view those characteristics as “normal” (Toland 110). As Stuart Hall has argued, “the reading of a particular image depends not only on the messages contained in it, but the messages surrounding it and the situational, societal, and historical context” (Hall). Commercials often have very little time to get a point across so advertisers try to emphasize certain aspects of a culture or race when attempting to promote diversity, but this then makes them more vulnerable to using stereotypes to describe a …show more content…
African Americans are often stereotypically featured in advertisements to promote the hip hop culture or become athletes. Julia Bristor suggests that “this limited view of African Americans in non-occupational and often leisurely roles may be damaging in that it suggests to the public that they have little to work towards except for a future in hip hop or sports” (Bristor 14). Pepsi’s representation of African Americans fails to reflect on the shifting perceptions of African Americans in our society as people who are in a wider variety of occupations outside of music and