
"The Uncle Sam Range"
• The Uncle Sam Range advertisement features more prominent vibrant colours to draw the eye and give the impression of happiness and americanised satisfaction in relation to the stove product the advert is selling. However the section of the image featuring the little servant boy has distinctly darker colours, moving away from reds and golds into browns and greens, to suggest the insignificance or lower class of the boy, and his unimportance to the happy American family. The Empire Marketing Board is comprised of duller colours as it has a more serious message than trying to sell ovens, and is trying to communicate a sense of underdevelopment and perhaps unintelligence, as the piece suggests that natives of British colonies are only efficient and "useful" when under the guidance of powerful white British men.
• In the Uncle Sam Range advertisement the focus of the image is on the family "feeding the world", as Uncle Sam is there to represent America, and one of the children wears a hat that says Britain to signify that Britain is an ally of America and supports their ventures. Off to the left is the image of the black servant boy, alone, crouched and very separate to the family as he appears to be hiding behind the oven. To me his inclusion in the piece in this manner suggests to the audience that having a servant is a sign of wealth and importance but treating them as anything other than property or tools is pointless. This is due to the boys placement in the piece amidst all the kitchen equipment and the fact that the colours surrounding him are dark Browns and blacks, suggesting he is just another appliance. In the Empire Marketing Board, in the first image, the tribe is shown travelling in a single file line with a mix of both men and women, suggesting a hierarchy based on skill at hunting and gathering, irregardless of sex. However, in the second image there are only men, all working beneath the proud stance of the white man on the left. There are also significantly more figures in the first frame, and they are all sharing the load equally and each carrying what they can manage. In the second frame, the men are all struggling with bigger heavier objects while the white man 'supervises' them. It is interesting to know that these posters are intended to advertise taking over colonies as a good thing, but only for the White Man in the frame as he is the only one doing no work.
• both these pieces would have similar audiences; upper class white men, but where the Uncle Sam Range appeals to its audience on a consumerist level, the Empire Marketing Board appeals to its audience on a socio-economic level. The Uncle Sam Range suggests to its audience that rich white Americans can have and deserve to have the latest technology in their homes. While there is a vague suggestion that everyone in the world also deserves this privilege with the globe man sat at the dinner table, all the real people who are getting fed are upper class looking white people. This suggests to the audience that while this range might be "feeding the world", they will be the first to receive the technology as they apparently deserve it for being part of advancing consumerist America. Conversely, the Empire Marketing Board reaches out to its audiences sense of nationalism and personal pride. By showing a tribe slowly gathering supplies contrasted with an industrialised method of work under the supervision of white men it is suggested to the audience that the attitudes of the western world are indicative of the future and the primitive colonies are in need of desperate revolutionising to become more like the clever, technologically advanced nation of Britain. Although now this attitude seems arrogant and imperialistic, at the time of this piece's creation it would've been the agreed general attitude to colonies and British expansion. The piece also gives its audience a sense of personal empowerment as they can picture themselves as the powerful white man as the piece suggests he represents all of Britain.
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