Compare and contrast the images.
The
font in the image advertising ‘The Uncle Sam’s range’ is in the foreground of
the image, therefore it is one of the first things you notice. The obnoxious yellow and large bold angular
typeface reflects America’s attitude at the time. The smaller more ornate type
on the table reading ‘Uncle Sam’s little dinner party’ is almost a patronising
statement because the world is at the dinner table inferring that it is far
from a little dinner party and America are in fact capable of feeding the
world. Think the aim of this ad is to
celebrate 100 years of independence from Britain by showing how wealthy and
capable they are. Many aspects of this image reflect the pretentiousness of
America at this time. The first being the stars and stripes that decorate
almost everything in the room from the clothes, to the carpet and curtains. The
way Uncle Sam is sitting is very casual and cocky also, in this image England
is represented as a woman. The general attitude at this time was that men were
of a higher status than woman so to have England presented as a woman was to
take a dog at England’s power and authority. The image also contains a receipt with
a list of stereotypical foods from a variety of countries; this suggests that
we should be grateful or in the rest of the world owes something to America for
the food it imports or exports. It should be noted that in the mage there is a
young slave preparing the food and Africa is the largest continent on the globe
and has been given a face. This says something about America’s attitude towards.
Perhaps this is trying to say that Africa should be grateful for colonialism.
The second set of images depict two different scenes, the first image titled ‘East
–African transport – old style’ shows a very traditional view of Africa. What
looks like a tribe are travelling through thick grass, and wearing traditional
clothing. In the second image ‘East-African transport-new style’ there is a
white man in the foreground, placed higher than the other people in the image,
but this image contains roads, boats, cars and the people are no longer wearing
traditional jewellery and are instead dressed very neutrally and appear to be working
for the white man in the foreground. This contrast between the two images suggest
that colonialism has been an improvement to their life. They now have efficient
ways to travel, roads and appear t have
jobs. I think these images have been used to paint a very biased image of what
was happening at the time and is probably very different to the reality of the
situation. Slavery had been abolished long before either of these images were
made however, they still depict black men working for white men, and image that
was probably accepted as normal and the way it should be as the audience for
these images was most definitely the west. Whilst in the first image a woman is
being served dinner at the table, both of these images enforce our stereotype
of gender roles. In the first image the guests are being served by a woman and
in the second set of images, woman are quite proudly walking front in centre
carrying goods however in the ‘new style’ image, woman are no longer present
and men are the ones doing the work.
