This is great proof that French advertising agencies of the 1970s couldn’t have been racist in passing.
Obviously, they were only being zooarcheologists.
Oh come on–the caves at Lascaux were so well known that the French government built a replica, in order to save the originals from being overwhelmed by tourists,
Is Fred Flintstone racist? Not really, but maybe I don’t feel like giving infinite benefit of the doubt to a company that frequently and historically and recently profits from easy cultural appropriation, at a time of pretty segregated advertising and casual racism.
If you happen to be wearing a leopard-print animal pelt right now, some people might not be able to easily discern the non-racist intent you surely have in your heart.
Were the cartoons of Gary Larson before your time?
It’s not Eau des hommes des cavernes, it’s Eau Sauvage.
You are absolutely free to give them the benefit of the doubt, knock yourself out.
It’s a common trope for the depiction of “cavemen”. Here’s a toy from around the same time as the ad, and of course Fred. Depicted wrapped in pelts of that shape pretty much by default, and for whatever reason spotted pelts are most common.
Now of course that trope itself is hopeless derived from tropes about “savages”, “natives” and what have, all of which are pretty well derived from racist ideas about Indigenous peoples and African cultures. As are a lot of our weird inaccurate ideas about early humans in general. But that does seem to be a deliberate depiction of a “caveman”, rather than a depiction of an African. So its more of a society is hopelessly warped by 18th century ideas about race and culture thing than deliberately marketing based on a stereotype of an actual culture.
It’s racism of the era, and people are only hair-splitting about whether it’s once or twice removed. I wasn’t going to get into talking about how the cave-man fad of the fifties and sixties was mostly a way to depict “African primitives” with white actors and white-coded characters, without meeting immediate cries of stereotyping. Most of the time it is solidly “easily deniable blackface”.
Just look at how the original objection was that it must be a caveman because it had white legs.
In any case, the original point had nothing to do with what kind of “savage” they were alluding to, it was that Christian Dior has a wealth of incidents of cultural appropriation and dog-whistle iconography for generations, throughout its existence.
illustrative shorthand. Drawing the spots is easier than drawing the individual hairs. It’s possible that the use of leopard skin in fashion has primed the public to accept this convention.
From 1966:
I think there’s also something to the popular coverage and publication on paleolithic animals and mega-fauna. And things like Lascaux. Much of that was discovered earlier, but owing to the world wars a lot of stuff wasn’t published broadly until the late 40’s, early 50’s. And post war there was a big boom in popular interest in dinosaurs, early humans, woolly mammoths with heavy coverage of that sort of science and archaeological work in major publications like Life and National Geographic. So you had recently discovered cave art showing that these animals were spotted, striped or otherwise patterned at around the same time our modern conception of “caveman” was developing.
Lucy was discovered in the 70’s, Lascaux was the 40s. Its really not for nothing that the Flintstones debuted in 1960 and stayed relevant for decades. There was also One Million Years BC (66) , The Lost World (60), Valley of The Gwangi (69). About a billion Dinosaur and Cave man movies at the time. A lot of the dinosaur and prehistoric mammal toys and books I had as a kid were published in the 60’s or 70’s. And a lot of the toys till Jurassic Park became huge were run off molds originally created in the 60’s.
All just a bit before, but roughly the same time as animal print became very popular in women’s fashion.
The ad in question is from 1970. And was apparently part of a series iterating on dudes in towels.
The more modern ad campaigns from these brands, including Dior. Are a lot more explicitly using racist and racialised images and energetically rubbing their crotches up on colonialism. I’ve said before that’s much more of an issue with the wealthy bubble they exist in than anything else. These brands are explicitly marketing to the upper class. Who cluelessly view colonialism and all these racist depictions as hugely fashionable. I work in The Hamptons in the higher end beverage business, and grew up in the area.
Plantation themed parties with all black staff are tre chic, though usually Brazilian/Caribbean style plantations rather than Southern US ones. Polo is huge here and people show up to the polo grounds dressed like its a god damned Fox Hunt (and there was at one point an actual Fox Hunt club here). There’s an entire boutique resort here that’s been redone to resemble French Colonial South East Asia. At one point there was a boutique that sold “safari” style or inspired clothing, and weirdly fantastically expensive big game hunting rifles (though that was mostly set dressing). There are many “galleries” selling “tribal” art of various sorts, and looted antiquities.
Today’s money wants to ape the oligarchs and aristocrats of the past. And these brands are equal parts so in that scene that they don’t see these campaigns as weird, and pursuing these things cynically because they work.
Holy fucksocks, I cant even believe that you have to explain that to anyone.
Calling or even inferring that any human being is a “savage” in our so-called civilized society is a bigoted form of dehumanization; it inherently implies INFERIORITY.
For the last fucking time, racism isn’t just explicitly burning crosses in Black people’s yards or literally lynching folks.
If circumstances have to get that incredibly bad in order for someone to finally see what’s right in front of their noses, then I don’t know what to tell them.
It’s an attempt to escape the contradictions of modern society by exoticizing cultures which haven’t yet (learned to) practice genocide on an a global scale.
Lévi-Strauss would completely agree with:
The thesis of that book is that humans in any society develop the same levels of complex thought, and that no group of people are “inferior” in thought. The title refers to the “beginning” mind inside everybody in every society, that develops more complex theories of thought.
It doesn’t separate the world into “savages” and “non-savages”. It’s arguing against that. I hope that’s why you’re dragging that picture in here.
I can only assume you mean Beck was born in 1966
It was Bob Dylan in 1966, but maybe they didn’t notice Beck was a different guy when they chose the video, because all white guys look the same to some people? (/s)
it’s a cover of a 1966 bob dylan song.
Could of been worse
