Disgust - The Reform party Racist Sarah Pochlin

Chocolatelovinggran

Well, it's advertising - land, isn't it? I'm not sure that the glossy hair, shiny homes and new cars we see in advertising are a strict representation of the people around us, either.
I am amused to see that, in this parallel universe, men are the only gender who mop floors or wipe surfaces ( although it is mostly women on laundry duties).
Apparently, teenagers, in this place, noticing dust , leap up and find a cloth to tackle it...
This is ad- land, not real life, and research would have gone into how to sell, not how to describe current Britain.

I am always amused at how proud men, in adverts, are of their cleaning efforts and need praising. It is every day life for most people and if we waited around for praise nothing would get done.

It is noticeable, my black friend has mentioned it saying something along the lines of it gives people a false overview of the black population's numbers. Very resonant for her when she moved out of South London down into rural Hants some years ago, becoming very aware of a demographic change having been brought up in London, she has plenty of friends both black and white. The impetus for her move was a young son, grown up now, who she didn't want drawn into gang culture. We moved out of London 4 years ago of course the population as a whole isn't really reflected in the more recent advertising campaigns. She, SP, didn't couch the essence of what she meant to say very well, but it's noticeable most people would acknowledge that and she won't be the first person to have tumbled on it either.

I agree with Chicolatelovinggran. It’s ad land.

Sandy f we want to get upset about over or under representation, how about class.

Are ads not almost 100% middle class?

Of course, because they are aspirational. The ad people know who their target audiences are and will target them. They couldn’t care tuppence about social equality - unless it would sell😬

No wonder dea who Sandy know s or how she got there🙄

who Sandy is….

Must try harder 😳

The characters who appear in TV adverts are a marketing choice and nothing to do with political views. They are selected to maximise viewer attention. I've noticed the adverts on daytime TV are somewhat different from those in the evenings, reflecting perhaps a different audience. I'm grateful we still have an advert-free BBC.

I think all sorts of organisations like to put a spin on how they present different demographics that are a bit of a false premise. Example, Duolingo I do French, there are two characters that often feature, Zari and Lily. Zari is a hijab wearing girl, so presumably Muslim, she is always positive, develops crushes on boys who she'd like to date, often wanting to go to see rock bands whilst simultaneously aiming to be a grade A student. Lily her white friend is a total misery who is an interminable moaner with a negative attitude to Zari's up beat one. Doesn't entertain Zari's latest crushes or desire to see the latest band and couldn't care less about school work. Whilst some of these reflections could be fair, I just wonder why these characters had to be so diametrically different in a positive and negative way.

@chocolatelovinggran
*Well, it's advertising - land, isn't it? I'm not sure that the glossy hair, shiny homes and new cars we see in advertising are a strict representation of the people around us, either.
I am amused to see that, in this parallel universe, men are the only gender who mop floors or wipe surfaces*

Still waiting for an advert with leaky bald fat men playing darts while comparing notes about their "pee pants " that last all day.

In real life we know 2 mixed race couples but on adverts EVERY couple are mixed race. I understand we live in a small predominantly white village in Yorkshire and that everyone's experience is different. She wasn't racist she was just stating a fact. This forced positive discrimination is doing more harm than good. If the adverts were more realistic this conversation wouldn't have happened.

There are several conversations going on here.

The racial representation in ads, the more general ‘adland’ world, identity politics and people’s propensity to being offended.

It is probably true that the diversity in ads is not representative of reality in the UK (outside of larger cities), but to me the question is why does that matter? We are looking at families distressed by pet hair or whatever, and being told that buying a particular vacuum cleaner will make them happy. Their skin colour is entirely irrelevant to that.

I agree that identity politics are troublesome. The assumption that being a woman born in a particular time period to parents with a certain type of occupation will make me think in a certain way is (IMO) bonkers- and a cursory glance at threads on here would back up my opinion. Lots of older women from similar backgrounds disagree with me on numerous topics.

Dismissing objections to pretty much anything as ‘some people look for ways to be offended’ is IMO just a lazy way of avoiding the effort of considering whether they may have a point. People will always disagree, and it’s fine to not be offended by things that do offend others. But that doesn’t mean that those on one side of that are right and the others wrong. They just disagree. Writing off others’ views is one of the side effects of identity politics that I dislike and think is dangerous. Why not consider the reasons why people think differently instead of just deciding that they are too easily offended?

Oh, and the anodyne ‘adland ’ world of blue secretions, smiling families and so on is obviously not real, but most of us know that and view them through that lens. Getting worked up about it is pointless, but it is interesting to look at what it is about them that annoys people. Is it the colour of the people, their affluence, their good looks, the way she is represented?

What Pochin said:

It drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people, full of anything other than white … how many times do you look at a TV advert and think there’s not a single white person on it … and it’s because of the woke liberati that goes on in the arty farty world. People notice. People will switch off.

Do they switch off? What evidence does she have?

Full of anything other than white? Let’s put that claim to to the test.

I just went to ITVX and clicked on the promoted drama series Trigger Point. It was preceded by:

• An ad for Domino Pizza featuring a white women running down a railway platform shouting Domino hoo-hoo to a white male passenger hanging out of the train window.

• Next an ad for Barclays Life Skills banking app featuring four young skateboarders, three male, one female of different ethnicities white and black.

• Next an ad for Vax carpet cleaner. Family of four, white mum, black dad, two young children and a dog.

Then I tried Long Lost Family. Domino Pizza again. Two white male archaeologists.

I hopped over to Channel 4 for Formula 1 highlights.

• White woman trying out sofas in DFS.

• RSPCA featuring mostly aimals with a brief shot of a RSPCA female officer of Asian ethnicity.

Then Gogglebox.

• Coventry Builiding Society. Beach scene. White woman with white children.

• Interflora featuring various life events, weddings and funerals and people of white, black and Asian ethnicities.

• Three Mobile. White family of four, mum, dad and two teenagers watching TV.

Full of? Not a single white person? Wrong on both counts.

I would argue those ads are a pretty fair representation of society.

The purpose the ad industry is to sell products. It would be daft not to represent society as whole, to suggest, for example, that only white people get married or organise funerals, to suggest that young people don’t have friends of all ethnicities, to suggest that people only ever chose partners of the same skin colour, to suggest that the RSPCA only employ white people to care for abandoned and ill-treated animals.

The advertising industry, or arty-farty world as Pochin calls it, spends £66 billion a year (media spend, agencies and production and marketing professional). The sector is estimated to contribute over a £100 billion to the UK economy and exports services worth around £20 billion.

Pochin is talking fabricated, racist, damaging nonsense.

She wasn't racist she was just stating a fact.

I wonder why she felt necessary to state this 'fact'?

I'm afraid that I'm definitely suspecting racism.

Then again, advertisements for retirement flats often feature silver head, super fit couples who look as if they could tackle a marathon or two no.probs. When my late mother lived in a retirement flat many of the residents noticably had wheel walkers and mobility issues. That's the world of advertising for you.

Apologies if this upsets anyone but I feel strongly about this woman. Just my view but to me, quite apart from the racist connotations, she is just a loud mouth on legs. She has been on several TV programs and always talks/shouts over other people, states views that she cannot back up with fact, is aggressive and generally disagreeable. She seems extreme and naive/uneducated in her views. Her aim appears to be to sow division and this is not what we need. I find it sad that someone like this could be voted into parliament.

*My son and DiL don't actually come from a big city background, we brought DS up in a very small town in Derbyshire after the age of 6 where there were virtually no people of colour at all.

DiL was brought up in an all white little Scottish town.

But fortunately, before then we had been in inner city Manchester, in a road with mostly first generation Pakistani incomers and some Irish people and further up the road a sort of alternative trip white community of younger people.

He'd gone to a nursery for a year that was very multi-cultural and one day said, "why is G brown". I said its becuase his mum was brown so his skin is the same colour. Obviously during the time until 6 he's had a chance to consider it normal to know a wide variety of people.

What truly shocked me (and DS) was when they came to visit one Sunday and we went to my local park. It's a super Park and people come from all over the city for its boating lake and disability friendly activities. It was full, that day, of 3rd generation Pakistani families on a big outing day.

Sadly, sitting watching the boats (like a group of Asian women all having a laugh together pedalling away)

She actually said "why don't they dress and talk like "us

Where the F* had that come from? Not her parents, who had studied in London, and were working in a University and as a Speech Therapist and hold similar views to myself. books in the house all had multiracial coloured children in them, but not in Real Life.

I'll tell you where out had come from - other kids parents - classmates at her primary school, which is all white

"Red wall" parents had passed on their casual or not so casual racism to their children and they were parroting them in the playground.

And these Red wall parents were not under threat as in local jobs taken away or there being any local hotels used for migrants.

Nor were most of the children inner city deprived type children and 'acting out" anti social behaviour, it was a peaceful and accepting primary school. One all of us would be glad for our grandchildren to be at.

She is now at Secondary School which although only a bit more mixed race wise the education process includes living in a multi cultural society.

needless to say when she comes to stay alone, we are going to my gym together, and will wander down roads with me meeting all the many different nationalities, seeing how some girls wear a headscarf, but a lot do not, at the gorgeous dressing up you can do in Shelwar Kameez, have a meal in a place I know..and talk about it.

Well, yes. In the rush to recruit (Cant you just imagine the omg we'll have to have a women MP she got picked up alongside some very dodgy men.

Ad makers bending over backwards to be inclusive. 8% or thereabouts of the population are black/mixed race yet adverts represent them in 45%. Often one white person with a mixed race partner.

Am I bovvered?
No, not at all. I had noticed this issue before Pochin’s statement but who really cares? It’s ad-land. Fantasy land at best. 🤷‍♀️

Thought you might agree with her FGT you never fail me 🙃

Flippinheck you haven’t upset me I agree totally, a mouth on legs

What matters is that Mrs or Ms MOuth on Legs should be pulled up for this and it doesn't just slip past notice.

I think although yes they are "just ads" it's a plus having multiracial actors so we are not only portrayed on the news when something goes terribly wrong and when people are on the streets always at odds with each other

As someone said above, we all sit on the loo and choose our loo paper or insurance policies or Wifi or funeral plan or whatever according to taste.

We see multicultural drama and news announcers too of course, and unlike even 30 years ago have male and female non white people in both powerful and benign roles and "villains".

Just like life, huh?

I wonder what her conversation is like in private!

Not someone I would want to socialise with I think.

Sticking my head above the parapet - I agree with her. She's quite right. The statistics clearly show that the over representation of ethnic minorities in mainstream TV adverts is true. It does irritate me because it's just so formulaic and predictable. Like the advertising agencies have to have a certain set number of ethnicities per advert. It's the same on all game shows.

The awful thing is some people agree with her secretly or otherwise:

and as long as we allow people holding the power she does are allowed to sound off like this then racism will continue to flourish.

Heart and minds folks, hearts and minds. How else do people change and decide to live with others of different backgrounds without gross assumptions (based as far as I can see on old attitudes that arise from the days of Empire).

I'm being pushed into being racist by such things as these adverts as the have become so overt. Also all the extremely worrying and negative news about Muslim men. I didn't use to feel racist but now I do. I'm being honest here.

Pochin should have the whip withdrawn but it won’t happen as a) racist Anderson would probably agree with her and b) Farage is of the belief that you can say what you like so long as you apologise next day … which she did - except it was a sorry not sorry backed up by selective statistics about black people (Black British, Caribbean or African). Her apology omitted people of Asian ethnicity whom she included in her racist rant. In 2021 they formed over 9% of the population in 2021.

In 2021 81% of the population identifed as white so it would be fair to say that four years on, some 20% of the population have black or brown skins or are of mixed race.

In my sample above, clicking on popular programes on two free-to-air commercial TV channels, I was served adverts for pizza, banking, carpet cleaning, buying a sofa, the RSPCA, saving for a holiday, buying flowers for family events and mobile phones.

How in the world is that fantasy land? These are everyday things that people of all ethnicities do. Irrespectve of our skin-colour, we all need to eat, bank, keep our homes clean, need somehere to sit, hopefully care about animals, want to go on holiday, send flowers, use a phone.

Why shouldn’t people of colour feature?

Ethnicity isn’t balanced across the the age demographic. Peak-time adverts are predominantly aimed at younger working age people where the ethnic mix will be different from afternoons where ads for walk-in showers, riser-recliners and river cruises dominate and feature mostly white people.