Today, I offer you, dear audience, a Mixed girl rant. I apologize in advance but occasionally a Mixed person can be a little shocked by the lack of Mixed-race representation in the media, and since I created this blog to promoted Mixed-race people in the media I feel like the occasional rant will be an issue from time to time.
About a month ago, Cheerios released a commercial which showed a little girl, concerned about her father's health, asking her mother if it was true that Cheerios was good for the heart. The commercial ended with the father waking up from a nap to discover a pile full of Cheerios over his heart. When I first saw this commercial I teared up. For those of you that do not know me, I give off a hard, slightly less then emotional persona, but nothing will drive me to tears quicker than a sweet father-daughter relationship. Partly because I did not have a good relationship with my own father, but partly because I think dad's get a bad wrap in the media generally and not all deserve it. So, yes, when I saw the commercial, I teared up at the sweetness of the little girl's gesture to save her father. There was nothing controversial or ugly about it, it was just a thoughtful family oriented TV spot about cereal... or so I thought. This sweet little commercial ended up sparking a shocking controversy that showed how far we may not have come in this country. Before I go on, check out this sweet yet "controversial" commercial.
About a month ago, Cheerios released a commercial which showed a little girl, concerned about her father's health, asking her mother if it was true that Cheerios was good for the heart. The commercial ended with the father waking up from a nap to discover a pile full of Cheerios over his heart. When I first saw this commercial I teared up. For those of you that do not know me, I give off a hard, slightly less then emotional persona, but nothing will drive me to tears quicker than a sweet father-daughter relationship. Partly because I did not have a good relationship with my own father, but partly because I think dad's get a bad wrap in the media generally and not all deserve it. So, yes, when I saw the commercial, I teared up at the sweetness of the little girl's gesture to save her father. There was nothing controversial or ugly about it, it was just a thoughtful family oriented TV spot about cereal... or so I thought. This sweet little commercial ended up sparking a shocking controversy that showed how far we may not have come in this country. Before I go on, check out this sweet yet "controversial" commercial.
After watching that commercial you might be asking yourself what the controversy was about. If you have that reaction, then like me you saw a sweet family commercial. Unfortunately, this commercial sparked some good ol' fashioned racism because the family portrayed was interracial. Several extremely racist comments were posted on General Mills Youtube page in response to the commercial. As a result, General Mills (GM) disabled the comments section on their page. Camille Gibson Vice President for Marketing for General Mills stated that many of the comments were not family-friendly and this made it an easy decision to remove comments. General Mills has seen more positive reaction to the spot then negative but the fact that there was such a strong reaction to seeing an interracial family in a cereal commercial in 2013 baffles me. Even as a person on Mixed-Race that has clamoured for more representation of Mixed-Race people in the media my whole life, the fact that this family was Mixed was lost on me. I, Sharmane Franklin Johnson, the girl with the Mixed-Race in media blog some how MISSED that she got to see a commercial with a Mixed-Race family in it. All I saw was a sweet family commercial about cereal. Isn't that where we should be in America in 2013? 50 years after the civil rights movement, shouldn't we all "miss" that the family in this commercial was interracial? For me the only answer is "yes." We shouldn't have to disable racist comments to a harmless commercial. We shouldn't even have to applaud a company for putting an interracial family in a commercial. We should just have people of all races, ethnicity's, sexual orientations, and genders in commercials and be perfectly comfortable with what ever combination of people are in them. The more interracial families and kids seen on TV and in movies, the sooner our culture will catch up to the normalcy of interracial families. Everywhere I turn, I see interracial families, it should not be shocking that people marry or have babies outside of their race.
It took me awhile to post my thoughts about this commercial because it took some time for me to digest the fact that it had such a crazy response. I thought we had come a lot farther in terms of race in this country. I thought my generations big fight was for equal rights for homosexuals, not whether or not it was okay to have a Black daddy and a White mommy portrayed in a cereal commercial. Didn't my grandparents generation take care of that fight for us in the 60's? It was a painful wake up call, one that shows me it is even more important for people of Mixed-Race to put themselves in the Entertainment industry, to tell stories of Mixed heritage so that it does become our normal. Even though I don't believe we should HAVE to applaud a company for exhibiting interracial families in commercials, I do applaud General Mills for not taking down the spot and to push the idea of tolerance and pride in Mixed families. It was a fearless and humanist move to make, and I am grateful they made it. Keep up the good work GM!
Cheney, A., (June 3, 2013). General Mills Blocks Racist Comments on Youtube Ad. Retrieved from http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/06/03/general-mills-blocks-racist-comments-on-youtube-cheerios-ad/
Sultan, A., (June 23, 2013). Cheerios commercial with interracial family stirred faux controversy. Retrieved from http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/relationships-and-special-occasions/parenting/aisha-sultan/cheerios-commercial-with-interracial-family-stirred-faux-controversy/article_92a4c186-4d56-5c02-a458-640fe55a6305.html
General Mills. (2013). Cheerios "Just Checking" Ad. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYofm5d5Xdw
